


Father and Son

by Lanzo



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Gen, Oops, Pre-Game Events, Sorry!, Violence, also a lot of childhood trauma i just realized, and minor setting-appropriate sexism, hints of toxic masculinity, minor spoilers for micah's character i guess, oh well it's baby micah and we dont care if he gets upset right, these tags arent good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-09-05 23:49:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 74,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16820914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lanzo/pseuds/Lanzo
Summary: 1877. Two men are wanted in connection with the murder of Roscoe and Jean Briggs, of Crawford County, Ohio. The suspects are believed to be one Micah Bell, age 38, and his son, also Micah Bell, age 17.Newspapers never really report the whole story, do they?





	1. The Briggs Ranch

**Author's Note:**

> Call this a villain origin story. I don't condone or excuse what adult Mike does eventually, he's evil and trashy but I guess evil and trashy ain't always like that and sometimes we can try to explain. It's kinda a tipping into madness tale, the story of a kid who was bad and got worse.  
> Also there are some on purpose phonetic spellings in this because uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh  
> I just liked that tiny newspaper clipping easter egg okay I'm only human.

“Take off your hat.”

Micah’s boot slipped on the muddy verge at the fence’s edge as he walked. “What?”

“Don’t _what_ me, boy. Y’heard. Take off your hat and mind your manners. And fix your hair away from your face. This is polite company we’re about to be in.”

Micah sneered and pulled his hat down by the brim. It slid off and the hair it had been hiding fell over his forehead past his eyebrows. He glanced to his father. The old man’s hair was cut to halfway down his neck, all slicked back, stinking of tonic and thinning at the temples. In the dying light of the evening, the gold, wet locks looked red as rust.

As he brushed his hair away from his eyes with his free hand, Micah gazed out at the Briggs ranch. It was a small holding. So small he could see the end of its boundaries on the top of the hill to the west. A goats and sheep place, his father had called it, despite the cows he could see being ushered into their shed for the night. Little animals, little people. Little minds.

A purple haze rested low on the crest of the hill. It rolled around the black trunk of the big solitary oak, the final beams of the sun blinking like flames through it. The branches crackled as the wind picked up.

“Can’t do nothin’ right. C’mere.”

The old man grasped Micah’s arm and spun him on the spot, licking his palm and using the flat of his hand to push back his son’s hair above his ear. “Head in the clouds, boy,” he said through blue teeth, “staring at nothin’ and dreamin’ like some girl. Ain’t raised no girl.”

His father’s grip was bear trap-hard, and after a moment withering under the pressure, Micah struggled, jolting his head away from his father’s coarse fingers.

“Offa me, old man!” he said, ripping his arm free.

His father huffed a rasping laugh. “I said I ain’t raised no girl. Good. But none of that attitude in front of the ranchers now, hear? And hold your hat properly, one hand, y’ain’t holding a bucket. Yet.”

Micah fell into step behind his father, head low, eyebrows down. A muddy dog loped by, muck flying from its long fur and spraying his pants leg. Micah blinked and continued to stare at the back of his father’s head, at how his hair was so stiff with tonic it didn’t budge in the wind.

“Excuse me!” said his father to a man crossing the yard to the farmhouse, “I’m lookin’ for a Mister Briggs.”

The man stopped and leaned on one leg, wrung his hands, sniffed. “I am he,” he said. He was a big man, into his early forties, with forearms wide as his thick neck and an even shine of sweat on his almost-handsome face.

Micah waited at his father’s elbow and gripped the brim of his hat a tad tighter.

“Good evening to you, sir, Mister Briggs. We have traveled from Darke County taking work where we can here and there and I heard in town yesterday you was down a couple of ranch hands recently.”

Briggs drew back and lifted his chin. Micah saw him frown. “Nobody in town got right to say of that to strangers. If you must know, them boys left to find their fortune elsewhere, not because I let ‘em go. Your name, sir?”

“Bell, sir.”

“You talk of taking work, Mister Bell, but can you do any?”

“Absolutely. Good work for good pay.”

“The pay is the pay and the work will be good with no matter to it.”

“Of course, of course.”

Briggs leaned to one side and tilted his head up in a tiny nod. “That your boy?”

Micah raised his eyes and straightened his posture, mostly because his father had slapped him on the small of his back. He turned his wince into a weak smile.

“Sure is. This here is Micah Junior, not quite eighteen.”

Micah took a breath and kept the forced smile. “Evening to you, mister,” he said. He heard his father’s teeth grind behind his cheek. Not loud enough. Not enthusiastic enough.

Briggs crossed his arms and shifted his weight onto his other leg. “Mister Bell, you look strong enough, but your boy... Your boy looks like he can’t hold up a straw of hay, let alone a bail.”

A heavy hand clapped onto Micah’s shoulder and shook it. He tried not to exhale his surprise at the rattling he'd been given.

His father sighed, a faked loving sort of sigh, and looked at Briggs. “Mister Briggs, I can vouch for my boy. He’s stronger than he looks. He’ll be a hard worker, I assure you.”

Briggs wiped his hands down his shirt and pursed his lips together. “You have horses?”

“Just up the track there.”

Briggs paused, ran his fingers down the groove of his nose to the end of his mustache, then scratched his chin. “All right. I wasn’t expecting to interview tonight, Mister Bell. I hope you understand that. But seein’ as you’re here and I’m feelin’ in a good enough mood... Accommodation you’ll have to source yourself in town. I got room to stable two horses if they’re small and won’t give no trouble.”

“That’s mighty gracious, Mister Briggs. We appreciate the opportunity.”

“This is a chance, Mister Bell, not an opportunity. You boys prove to me that you can pull your weight and I’ll give you all the days you want to work. How many were you planning?” Briggs waved a hand to the door of his home, already walking.

“A few. Yes, I’d say a few days would do us. But of course, if we like the envirement we might stay longer.”

The farmhouse door swung open. The muddy dog which had sailed past Micah’s leg not long before bounded past like a cannon ball and barrelled into the lady standing on the porch. “Roscoe,” she called out to Briggs, “we got ourselves some guests?”

Briggs opened his mouth to speak but Micah’s father was quicker, stepping forward to the foot of the porch steps. “Yes, mam. The name’s Bell. My son and myself look forward to workin’ with you here on your beautiful ranch.” Micah rolled his eyes when his father bowed.

“Well, ain’t that handy. Won’t you come in for something before you head on back for the night?”

“Jean...” Briggs said.

“Roscoe,” she said. Her thin brow twitched. “It’s cold out without the sun. Please,” she added, standing aside. Micah’s father swept inside and Micah trailed behind, murmuring a tight ‘thank you, mam,’ as he passed her.

\---

His father and Mister Briggs spoke at the table, talked about rates and hours and things expected of the two of them. Micah was left with the wife, Jean. She was darning by the fire and he’d drawn up a chair at the other side of it, hat in lap. The muddy dog lay between them, curled up. The dirt on its fur dried pale and flaky.

“You’re about the age of my niece, young man,” said Jean, “what’s your name?”

“Micah,” he said, looking away.

“Well, Michael--”

“No. It’s Micah. With a ‘h’.”

“Oh. I am sorry. Micah. Have you been in Crawford County long?”

Micah watched his father work his charm. The man had never looked charming, and he supposed by default as his father’s son, neither did he himself. But the old bastard knew what to say, how to turn things his way and make them walk right toward him. He could ask a dog and cat to dance together on their hind legs and they’d jump up to do it, wearing human clothes to boot.

“No,” he said after a long beat, his voice far away, “no, we ain’t-haven’t been here long.”

“Do you like it?” Jean asked, leaning forward.

“No.”

“No?” said Jean. Micah swore he heard her catch her splutter and disguise it in a wheeze. That dang fireplace, of course, giving her a cough. Sure.

“Looks like every other place.” Micah turned to look at her. Her feet were tucked under her long dress as she worked, and now that he saw her from the side noticed she was plumper than he’d first thought. The light from the fire cast shadows into the wrinkles he’d not seen at first on her face, too. She wasn’t old, perhaps in her thirties, but the lines made her look worn. “Same for the people,” he added, glancing away again.

He heard Jean rustle the clothing she was mending. “That’s a very sad way to look on things, especially at such a young age. Place can be beautiful,” she replied, pausing with her needle halfway through the material, “same for people.”

Micah frowned and listened to his own breathing. In the corner of his eye he saw Jean return to her darning, this time pulling the thread quicker and further than before.

His father stood and shook hands with Briggs, his smile a smug, thin line. “We best leave you to your evening, Roscoe. Thanks again, we’ll see you in the morning,” he said, waving his hand to indicate they were leaving.

Briggs rose to his feet and put his hands in his pockets. “Bring your horses down tomorrow and we’ll stable them. That’s where your boy can start, too. Good night, Mister Bell, Master Bell.”

“Get up,” his father said through the side of his mouth when he passed Micah to go to the door. Micah jumped up and rammed his hat onto his head, pulling it low. He touched the brim in a lazy goodbye to Jean and followed his father out.

\---

Plumes of hot breath rose like steam from the horses’ mouths and nostrils when they reached them. Micah’s father leapt onto his black mare and waited for her to stop swaying before leading her on. He left Micah behind to tackle his and catch up.

“You need to name that horse,” said his father once Micah had drawn up alongside him.

“What?”

“Give the goddamn horse a name. We need those people to think we’re good, honest folks who don’t steal horses. What you think they’re gonna say when you show up with that animal and they ask ‘what’s its name?’ and you just stare like you ain’t got no brains in your head? They’ll suspect. They already suspect.”

Micah scoffed a breathy laugh. “They don’t suspect.”

His father yanked on the reigns of his horse. She kicked back her head and lifted her front hooves from the ground. Micah copied as fast as he could, accidentally pulling to the left too hard and veering his horse to one side.

“They suspect! We almost lost them back there because of you,” his father said.

Micah balked, widened his eyes, lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “You said no attitude!”

“I said no attitude, not no personality at all. You acted like a frightened little girl afraid of strangers at a party, Micah. You didn’t show an inch of backbone back there. You sat aside with the woman instead of sittin’ down with the men to talk business. You ain’t no child no more. Take some goddamn initiative. Jesus. You might as well have picked up one of her sewing pins and started makin’ a dress.”

Micah glowered, felt the heat of embarrassment creep red up his neck and a hot wave sweep down his back like boiling water. “I didn’t wanna interrupt! You was talking to him about stuff I didn’t know about. What’re we even doing? I don’t wanna work in no stable, I’m no prissy horse groomer.”

“No?” asked his father, wrapping his horse’s reigns around his knuckles.

Micah swallowed the lump in his throat. “No. No, I ain’t.”

His father chuckled, low and long. “Briggs thought you looked weak. You better step up and show him you are anythin' but. What we’re doin' is a job. And what you’re doin' is listenin’ to me and doin’ what I say. I say jump, you say ‘off what?’ you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Pardon me?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I understand, sir.”

“Enough of that sir bullshit. I’m your father, and that makes me more than a sir. Ride ahead and find us a room someplace in that town we were in. Go.”

Micah turned his horse around and looked at his father, at the scowl on his thin face, at the bunching of the muscle under his stubbled jawline, at the deep line between his eyebrows. He did his best to echo it, then gave his horse a kick.

He jabbed the beast too much on the ride down to the town and thought about names for it. Not a single one was cruel enough.


	2. Couzens and Connelly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These lads do what we all wanna do. Destroy Micah. Thank u brave souls.

The horses were called Old Jupp, Star and Honeybird. Or, at least, the ones Micah cared to remember the names of, and he only knew those because they gave him the most grief. Old Jupp, especially, was a nasty old boy, always hopping from foot to foot when he went near, ready to squash him into the stall wall at every given opportunity. Micah made sure to brush him extra hard, really rake the tough brush hairs through the tangles without mercy, make him feel it, stupid animal. 

His father was out in the sun repairing roofs. From the stable he could hear his deep, barking laugh. The old man was always quick to adapt, to mould himself, talented at keeping spirits high and suspicion low. 

Micah threw the horse brush into one of the empty buckets. It clanged, the echo rising to the rafters. He leaned against one of the stall doors, bent double, elbows on his thighs. 

It had only been a few hours since sunup and his job had begun, but it felt like an age. His good white shirt, the one with the stripes, was already turning brown and yellow. The sleeves kept slipping down his thin arms. Each time he dumped buckets onto the floor the water jumped up and soaked them. They were still damp now. Damp and stinking. 

The stable doors swung open. 

Micah lifted his head and ran his hand along the back of his neck. The ends of his hair were soaked in sweat. “Hell do you jackasses want?” 

“That ain’t no way to greet a colleague now, is it, new blood?” said Jacob Couzens, a tall young man, long-nosed and thin-lipped. Micah had exchanged filthy looks with him already that morning. 

“Amazed you spotted him at all, Jake, what with all this straw around,” said Jacob’s pal, a boy called Connelly. 

Micah stood and pushed up a wet sleeve to hang sadly at his elbow. “What’s that s’posed to mean?” 

“He’s sayin’ you look like you sprung up outta all this dirty hay, with that hair color.” 

Micah advanced, both hands as fists. 

“Watch it, kid. You want Mister Briggs to find out you been bullyin’ his good workers?” 

“I ain’t seen you doin’ any work at all, good or otherwise.” 

“Of course we been doin’ work. We been doin’ lots of good work, haven’t we, Daniel? We been seein’ to the horses, the troughs, the herdin’, the brandin’, the seedin’... yeah, I think we did all that today, didn’t we?” Jacob laughed and rested a hand on hip, his eyebrows up as he stared. 

“And if we didn’t do it, then well, I guess we’ll lose our jobs, won’t we? Oh, what would our father think, hearin’ that?” added Connelly, folding his arms. 

Micah laughed. “You think I’m scared of a threat like that? I ain’t doin’ your work for you, you lazy sons of bitches. Shovel your own shit and do it somewhere else. I got enough to work with here without whatever comes outta your mouths, too.” 

He didn’t get time to turn around. He didn’t get time to do anything beyond gasp when the air leaped out of his lungs as he hit the ground shoulders first. Jacob’s first punch caught him across the brow, the second on the bridge of his nose. Jacob had a hand around his neck, his fingers clawing and gripping at his collar. Micah’s arms feebly went up to try and push Jacob’s chest back, then pawed at his shoulders, scratching at the ranch hand’s arms, all the while failing to block his hands from reaching his face again. 

Only when he raised a knee and drove his heel into Jacob’s thigh to kick him back did he let go. Micah scrambled backward and picked himself up, then, as Jacob recovered, threw himself on him, returning the favor, elbowing and clawing. Connelly got a bite on the wrist when he attempted to intervene and reeled back yelping. 

The horses started to rear their heads and stamp, the loud clack of their hooves on the stone drowned by the yells of the scrapping young men. 

The stable doors opened. Micah glanced up, ugly snarl still on his face, to see his father, drying his hands with a rag and slowing his walk. Connelly took the opportunity to grab Micah by the hair, pulling him down and away from Jacob. 

Jacob stood, panting, hissing, wiping blood from his lip. Before Mister Bell could reach them, he limped over to kick Micah in the ribs. 

Someone had him by the scruff of the collar and was hauling him up. Micah saw Jacob holding his face and pointing at him to Briggs. Connelly was behind him, nursing his hand. His father’s hard hand squeezed his collar at the back, pulled the front button up to his neck where it started to press onto his throat. “Was you gonna kill that boy?” he asked in a growl. 

Micah hung there, half on his knees, hands shaking, breath rattling. His father dropped him and strode past him to Briggs. 

“Forgive the hot bloodedness of boys,” Micah heard his father say through the ringing in his ears. 

Briggs snorted. “Mister Couzens tells me he found your son bein’ lax in his duties. Idling, sir. He says he confronted your boy and asked him to get along and he attacked him. What say you to that?” 

Micah sat back on his legs, an arm wrapped around his middle. When he tried to defend himself, he found his voice gone, replaced by a scraping pain in his neck which made no sound. 

“I’ll discipline the boy. It’s been a while since he’s had real, hard work to do. Please, let me speak with him and he will be better.” His father’s begging, outstretched hands went to his sides and became still, firm, tensed. Micah turned his eyes away. 

“The cost of the medical supplies we’ll have to waste on him comes out of your wage, Bell. Yours and his. Take him to Jean and she’ll clean him up. I want him back in here in an hour. Back here and working, hear me?” 

His father bowed his head and stepped away from Briggs. “Thank you. You won’t regret your kindness, Mister Briggs, I assure you.” 

“Pa, wait-” Micah wheezed. His father hauled him onto his feet by the front of his shirt and he clutched at the strong arm holding him, wobbling. He was thrown forward into unsteady steps and kept walking. He tilted his head to stare at Jacob Couzens through wet strands of hair and saw the corner of the little slime‘s mouth turn up into a smirk. 

\--- 

Jean Briggs clicked her tongue and wrung the cloth into the sink. The water dribbled pink. “Shouldn’t have fought with them boys, young Mister Bell,” she said, returning to her stool in front of the fireplace. 

Micah was perched on the other one, a knee bouncing up and down and both hands holding onto the back of it. “They started it,” he said. 

“Jacob’s a good lad. Connelly too. They never cause trouble. Been here years, both of ‘em. They aren’t much older than you but they started at this younger than you are now. Jacob can be a stern young man, but you’re here to learn from him and, I’m afraid, do as he says. Can’t be scrappin’ like pups over work.” She sighed and sat back, both hands in her lap. “Are you going to let me near you?” 

“Won’t make no difference if I do, mam,” said Micah, his voice still scratchy. 

“Now, what’s that meant to mean? Look up at me a moment.” 

Micah rolled his eyes, winced when the eye-rolling made his swelling eyebrow hurt all the more, then looked up at Jean with a frown. 

Jean paused. He saw her searching his face for something and imagined it wasn’t a very pleasant journey. 

“Are you finished?” he said. 

Jean blinked. “Yes, I suppose I am. No stitches needed and the bruises should go down soon. You’re free to go.” She tried to smile. 

Micah got up without a word and slammed the door behind him. 

\--- 

His father had been waiting for him at the stables. Micah’s shoulders dropped and he cleared his stinging throat. “Listen to me, those morons, they jumped me, I wasn’t doin’ nothin’ wrong-” 

His shoulders hit the stall door and his father’s hand was back at the front of his shirt. The horse in the stall behind him made a racket, squealing and rearing. It was Honeybird. Micah heard her retreat to the back wall. 

“I don’t care if you did nothin’ wrong, you let these boys push you around. You let ‘em do what they want,” said his father in a harsh whisper. 

Micah wriggled. “Why? Why the hell should I? You told me. You told me to show some backbone and I’m tryin’!” 

“I didn’t tell you beat all the goddamn blood and piss and shit outta that boy! And I distinctly remember tellin’ you last night, none of that shitty attitude of yours. Be smart. Adapt. Now you know this place ain’t gonna be as easy as we wanted and we gotta be more careful.” 

“Easy as we wanted? Careful? Pa, what are we doin’ here?” 

His father let him go and Micah pulled his shirt back into shape, breathing hard. 

“A job.” 

“A job? What kinda job? Ranching? You wanna be a rancher? Is that it? We not stealing and thieving no more and we’re gonna settle for a nice quiet life out here like these stupid saps?” 

His father cracked the back of his hand across Micah’s forehead, right along his puffy eyebrow. Micah lost his breath again and started collapsing to the side, a hand hovering frozen over his face. 

The old man grasped him by the arm and pulled him back up to stand straight. “Don’t be sayin’ that in that whiny little voice of yours in here! You want the whole place to know what you are? You’re here for a good reason and we’re gonna leave it at that.” 

Micah stared, eyes watering, half of his face burning with agony, hand still raised. He nodded and closed his eyes, waiting for his father to disappear. 

After a final shove back into the wooden stall door, his father let him go. “See to these horses,” he said as he left. 

With a shuddering breath, Micah rolled a shoulder and ran a thumb under his eye. The wet he rubbed away from the lower lid was just sweat from the fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god forgive me for what i am doing here today


	3. Maggie-May

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Margaret-May, aka an angel, is here and ready to be good.

Margaret-May White arrived at the ranch that afternoon. The moment the cart slowed at the top of the track to the farmhouse she leaped down, slung her books bound by a leather belt over her shoulder, and ran down the hill, laughing. 

One of the logs in Micah’s arms slipped to the dirt as he watched her. 

She ran fast in heeled boots, the blue and white skirts of her dress billowing behind. The muddy old dog lying under the porch steps perked up and yapped, then galloped to meet her. It jumped at her and she dropped her books to pet it on one knee, clouds of dust wafting from the dog’s back and tail. 

Micah looked on, more logs sliding from his grip. Margaret-May patted the old dog on the flank one last time and stood up, clapping her hands together, bookstrap back over her shoulder again. Jean Briggs appeared at the door and greeted the girl with a hug and a tender touch of the shoulder. He spotted Jean pick at Margaret-May's now-dirty dress a moment later. Margaret-May laughed. He couldn’t hear it, but it was bound to have been a most perfect laugh. 

“Watch it,” said a voice at his shoulder. “And I mean watch yourself, not her.” 

Micah glanced askance to see one of the other boys. He wasn’t Couzens or Connelly, so he didn’t think to worry about a name for him. 

“Who is that?” he asked, hitching the logs up his chest to stop more toppling. 

“Maggie. Maggie-May. The niece. She visits sometimes when she ain’t at school or bein’ bound out to watch over babies of other families. Best you leave her be. And get those to the log store, Couzens sees you lollygaggin’ again he’ll have your hide.” 

The log store was at the back of the farmhouse, a little away from the building and within view of the kitchen’s window. Micah dumped the logs and kicked the ones which rolled away back up into the pile. After a speedy glance about to make sure nobody was near, he flipped up a wider log and sat down on it, resting his elbows on his knees and inspecting his hands. The pads of his palms were red, splinters stuck out of his fingers like black hairs. 

He picked out a few splinters, flicked them away, then touched at his face. His eyebrow was still aching, the bridge of his nose the same. He’d caught sight of his reflection not too long back in a barrel of water in the barn. Even clear-faced he’d never been the good-looking kind, but the purple and pink bruising under both eyes had made his father laugh, made the old man joke. ‘You put your makeup on upside down!’ he’d said with a guffaw in front of Couzens. 

“We’ll have a couple of those, if you please,” someone called. 

Micah looked up and saw the girl, Maggie-May, clinging to the kitchen door frame and pointing at the logs. 

“It’s all right durin’ the day but the fall don’t half get cold when the sunshine disappears. Can you bring ‘em in?” she said, vanishing into the house with a twirl of blue. 

Micah stood up and scrabbled his hands down the log pile. He scooped up a few slim ones which wouldn’t warm up a couple of insects, but still he trotted inside after the Briggs niece with them as if they were made of China. 

“Thank you, just there, if you could,” said Maggie, her back to him. 

Micah rolled the logs close to the fireplace’s grate and stood back, his eyes darting every which way. 

“You know where the mail clerk is in town?” she asked, turning about and flipping through envelopes. 

“I think so, mam,” he said. He cleared his throat and ran a hand under his chin. “You must be a fast writer.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“I’m, uh... You only just got here and you got all those letters to send.” 

“Oh! I meant to send these old things last week, I just ran outta time. But thank you, I am also a fast writer,” she looked up at him with a smile, which then faltered at the edges. “I don’t mean to pry, but, have you been in an accident?” 

Micah snapped his head away and put up his shoulders, hands in his pockets. “A small one, mam. Ain’t nothin’.” 

Maggie’s smile went from twitchy to knowing. She lowered her head. “You’re new. I’m sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. I’m Maggie. Jean’s my mother’s sister,” she said, tying the letters with string and holding them out to Micah. 

He took them, held them up to her as a goodbye and turned to go. 

“Excuse me,” said Maggie, stepping forward, “it isn't polite to hasten away without givin’ a name back.” 

“Bell,” said Micah, still hurrying to the door. He wrapped a hand around the handle. 

“Now, that’s your family name. What’s yours?” 

Micah stopped at the door, stared at the grain of the wood at the base of the window, at the old cobwebs smeared along it. “Same as my father’s and his father’s, Miss Maggie. I’m just Micah.” He dared to look over his shoulder at her. 

“That’s a good name,” she said before she breathed in and clasped her hands together in front of her stomach. “Would you please check for any letters for Briggs, while you’re there? That’d be awful kind.” 

“Okay. Uh, yes, Miss Maggie, mam.” 

Micah didn’t breathe again until the door was closed. He was glad he didn’t, as he’d only have lost it again upon seeing Jacob Couzens loitering at the log pile. He had a foot balanced on a log, his arm draped over his thigh. 

“Mikey, Mikey. Been talkin’ to my girl?” 

Micah tucked the letters under his shirt collar. “Afternoon, uh, what was your name? Matthew?” 

Couzens drew to his full height and kicked away the log under his boot. 

“If she’s your girl, go talk to her! I got an errand, that’s all. If-if she’s your girl go inside and see to her,” said Micah, walking away from the door. Couzens started to follow. 

“Who is ‘she’, Micah Bell? The cat’s mother? Any case, this ‘she’ is nobody’s, you be pleased to bear in mind,” said Maggie, standing at the back door and tapping her nails on the window. She picked up the front of her dress, hopped down from the step and brandished a letter at Micah. “I forgot one, thank you.” 

Micah took the letter. It shook in his fingers. “Miss Maggie, I didn’t mean to say it like that-” 

“Mister Couzens, please find yourself something to do other than bother people who are working.” Maggie patted down her dress and waited, her arms crossed behind her back. 

Couzens froze, sniffed, then sloped away. Maggie hummed to herself. “There’ll be no more accidents today for you, Mister Bell. For today, at least. Please hurry to town, now. I believe they’ll be closing soon.” 

\--- 

“You checked the letters for money?” 

Micah leaned back from the bar. His father was nibbling at a slice of chicken from his pocket knife. It squelched as he spoke through it. 

“No, sir, I did not. Way I see it, they weren’t addressed to me so they weren’t mine to look at.” 

His father jammed the butt of his knife onto the counter. The chicken jumped from the blade and landed back on his plate. Micah flinched. “Now, see, this is why I get angry with you. You don’t think, boy.” He huffed and leaned in close to his son, the hand holding the knife clinging to Micah’s shoulder, blade trembling close to his ear. “What you do is you take those letters offa the lady, you use a knife to ease open the envelopes and you check for lil ol’ notes to relatives or friends or family that might have money in, money for a book, money for a nice new shirt, that kinda thing. Then you seal it back down again and mail it like she ask you. Nobody knows the wiser, for a while anyways.” 

“You want us to work for these folks and steal from ’em, too?” Micah whispered, straining to move away from his father’s hold. 

“Since when you change your mind about stealin’? We rob from fools on the road all the time and now you wanna grow some morals? You sweet on that girl or somethin’?” 

Micah raised his good eyebrow. “I ain’t-no, I ain’t sweet on no girl! I was behavin’. Because you said so. If it’d been any other time I’da torn up them letters myself. After checkin’ for money. I didn’t bother with the letters because I could tell there was nothing in ‘em except writing. That girl ain’t got money. She’s in school, she does babysittin’ on the side. None of ’em got money...” 

His father gurned a smile at him through a mouthful of chicken. “Well, all right,” he said, slapping the kid on the back. 

Micah left him to his meal and span on his stool to face the rest of the saloon. The township of Cranberry wasn’t a bustling place. The marsh nearby probably saw more life, but there were enough men in the bar that night to leave a small murmur in the air, to send to the ceiling. 

The riding to and fro from the ranch had upset his side where Couzens had kicked him. He hadn’t checked the bruising yet, but something sharp and stabbing lingered there. 

“Eat somethin’,” said his father after a while, sliding his plate across. “Finish that and go to the room. And stay there, hear?” 

Micah chased the last pieces of chicken and potatoes around the plate with a finger. 

The bartender sidled over, his rag spinning circles on the counter. “So, how you boys finding the place?” he asked. 

“It’s a real gem of a place, sir. We just got done finishing our first day at the Briggs ranch and lookin’ forward to another,” said his father with a friendly laugh. 

“I need some air,” said Micah, standing. 

His father whipped out a hand and caught him by the wrist. The smile was gone from his face. There was only a gaunt, downward curve of a line where his lips had been. “What you need that for?” 

“To breathe! Let go of me.” 

“Quit cryin’ out like a damn woman,” his father hissed, releasing his grasp. “Go get your air before you faint, little girl.” 

Micah slapped the saloon doors with the flat of his hand and stepped outside. The evening was cool and dry. The air was still and already the low rumble of activity in the bar was quiet as the rustle of leaves. He pulled his rough old coat closer and walked the main street, eyes on his boots. 

At the general store he slowed and dipped into the small alley between it and the building next door. He slumped against the wall and fumbled at untucking his shirt. The longer it took to do it, the more fervently he struggled. He finally managed to pull the hem up and twisted around to catch a look at the bruise along his ribcage in the lantern light. It was dark and patchy, almost spotted like the dappling on a horse. He dropped the shirt back down with a grunt and breathed as deeply as the pain allowed, then slid down the wall to sit in the grass, one hand pressed to his side and the other a fist resting over his good eye. 

A wet, black rat scuttled over his boot. Micah yelped and kicked out at it. It shrieked almost as loud as he had and snaked around him to disappear between two barrels to his side. He got up in a shot with a shiver and kept kicking at the gap it had slipped through, denting the wood and splintering it. 

Breathing hard, hands shaking at his hips, Micah gave up, gave into the building wince he’d been holding off since the adrenalin had sent him after the animal. 

His father found him half-slumped over the barrel he’d come close to shattering. The old man righted him and shook his shoulders. “What is this? You ain’t drunk, boy, that I know.” 

Micah opened his eyes and looked at the top of his father’s head where the tonic slathered in his hair shone the brightest. He couldn’t look him in the eye. “Hurt more than I thought I was, pa,” he said, his volume louder than he’d intended. 

“That all?” said his father, curling his nostrils. He let him go. “One little tap in the side and you’re down for the count. Thought there was more of you than that.” His father snarled and paced around, chewed a thumbnail between his teeth before he dropped his hand to his thigh. “Tell you what. You wanted air? Then have it. All of it. Sleep out here tonight.” 

Micah surged forward and grabbed his father by the sleeve. His father peeled his fingers from his clothing. “No, no, you stay right here, I said. Stay. Atta boy. Take responsibility.” 

“You can’t do that,” said Micah through his teeth, hunching his shoulders. 

“I can, because you’re mine, and I do what I want with things that are mine. You were bad today. Reap your reward. Dream of that Briggs girl. Maybe she’ll keep you warm. And if you knock on my door tonight, I’ll only open it to skin you alive, understand? Sit down.” 

“No, I won’t, sir.” 

“Sit.” 

“No.” 

His father loomed and pushed one of his shoulders into the wall. “You’d do well to sit down or I’ll make sure those ribs of yours really are broke.” 

Micah slid his back down the wall to sit at the bottom of it and drew up his knees. He gave his father the nastiest glare he could muster and only let it crumple when the old man was gone. Lowering his head to rest on the arms he’d crossed atop his knees, Micah cried till he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This entire thing is just me saying 'then perish' over and over.


	4. Quiet Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He talks to a girl TWICE what a wild man.

“You alive there, son?” 

Someone gave the toe of his boot a nudge. Micah started awake and lifted a frozen hand to shield his eyes as he looked up. 

An old man with more beard than skin on his face was peering down at him. “Said are you alive, son?” 

Micah stiffly stood, using the barrel to prop himself up, and paused, blinking furious, remembering how to breathe. He wasn’t sure how much he’d slept, if he’d slept at all, or if he was still asleep. He’d had dreams which had hurt before. 

“You’re white as a sheet, son. You sleep out here?” asked the old man. 

Micah put out a hand like a blind man and stepped away from him. “Yeah, I did.” 

“Why? Was cold out last night, you know,” said the old man, following. 

“Because I felt like it! Get away from me.” Micah waved the old man back and stumbled forward. He heard the old bastard scoff and tut and mutter about the youth of today’s lack of respect behind him as he headed to the Cranberry stables. 

“Mister Colman,” he called out in a small voice before he forced it into a shout. “Mister Colman!” He swayed in front of the stable doors and used the sun to realize the hour. The fact that the sun was up at all meant he was already extremely late. 

“Young Master Bell,” said Colman, a man who resembled half of his horses, “your father’s already been and gone from here.” Colman leaned on the stable door, rattling a bridle in his hands. 

“I know, can you... can you get my horse for me? I don’t feel all so good to do it myself.” Micah spent a moment bent halfway to his knees again before he caught himself and shook his head. 

“I, uh... I assumed you was going to stay in town today, on account that your father Mister Bell took your horse with him to the ranch. Told me they needed the horse and not the, uh... the... you.” 

Micah barked a laugh and raised a hand to his forehead, ran his thumb over the lump on his eyebrow. He nodded, closed his eyes, turned around on the spot. “Okay. Okay, Mister Colman. Thank you for your help, I’ll, um... I’ll see you.” 

\--- 

Micah walked. He trekked up the hill, stumbling to the side of the track as riders and carts trundled by. If offered a lift he would decline it each time. It was a fair way out to the Briggs ranch, but he made it, feeling much warmer than when he’d started, at least. 

It was midday. He found Maggie perched on the fence, kicking out her boots every now and again to keep her balance, a notebook in her lap and a fountain pen twirling in her hand. She looked up and how neatly her dark ringlets bounced around her neck. “Micah? Your father said you were sick, that you would stay in Cranberry today,” she said, closing her book. 

“I’m okay. Where is he?” 

“Your father? He’s around by the barn, I reckon. Are you sure you’re all right?” 

“I’m fine. Can you tell me what work needs doin’? I need to get along with somethin’.” 

“If you feel bad you shouldn’t do anything. We aren’t gonna run you into the ground if you’re sick.” 

“No, no, I need him to see me. See me here. Doin’ things.” He went to lean on the fence next to her and stared out at the paddock. 

“Your father again? Why do you need him to see you doing things? To impress him?” 

“Something like that.” He felt her eyes on him so he tilted his head away, only mostly sure he’d looked aside due to the state of his face and not the prettiness of hers. He tapped his hands on the fence and gave her a small glance. “What’re you doing? Drawing?” 

“Writing.” 

“Oh, yeah? What do you write? Like a journal?” 

Maggie smirked and shuffled where she sat. “Like stories.” 

“Like a novel?” 

“Something like that,” she said. When she caught his eye her look was knowing. He returned it, then cleared his throat and turned around to lean his back on the fence. 

“You can’t just stop there, Miss Maggie. What you writin’?” 

“Scary monsters, mostly.” 

Micah folded his arms and turned his grimace at the pulling around his ribs into an attempt at a smile. “Monsters? Like dragons and that?” 

“Dragons and worse. My momma says it ain’t right for a girl to like to read about such nonsense, let alone write it from my mind but... I don’t know. It’s silly, ain’t it?” 

“No, that’s not silly. Way I see it, monsters should be wrote about.” 

Maggie scrunched up her nose and frowned at him, kicking out her feet. “Really?” 

Micah moved his head back and shrugged, his gaze flashing to the ground. “Sure. Otherwise, if we weren’t warned about ‘em in stories, how would we know when one’s right in front of us?” He raised his eyes to Maggie’s and really looked at her, gave a smile another shot. It was crooked and a little too toothy, but it was a smile. 

He drummed the fence at her side and backed away. “I’m gonna go find me somethin’ to do.” 

“Wait,” said Maggie, jumping off the fence, “I’ll... I’ll tell them you were doing more errands for me this morning. In town. That way they won’t know that you were sick or late.” 

Micah slowed down, still walking backward. “You’d do that?” he said, eyes wide. 

“Yes! Go!” she replied, waving him off and grinning. 

\--- 

“You’re late,” said his father. 

“No, I ain’t,” Micah said, narrowing his eyes and joining him in the barn. Feeding the leather on saddles was a good enough task to keep him occupied. He slung one over an empty stall door and got to it. 

“You ain’t?” said his father, his eyebrows at his thinning hairline. 

“Heard me. Was in town all morning. Doin’ jobs for Miss Maggie White.” 

“Oh, the Briggs girl? Didn’t know you was on first name terms with her. Unless that’s a lie, too.” 

Micah huffed a noisy sigh and leaned his wrists on the saddle in front of him. “You left me.” 

His father’s lower eyelids twitched and his lip curled. “I learned you, boy.” 

“Don’t be callin’ me boy no more. I ain’t that. Or so you keep sayin’. ‘Sides, none of this woulda happened if we weren’t here in the first place.” 

His father slapped the saddle he rested on and Micah stood back, lowered his head, stared at him from beneath his brows. 

The old man pinched the bridge of his nose, then swept a stray, slick strand of hair back into its rigid place on top of his head. “I told you a thousand times, we’re here for a job. Here for a reason. Here for you. Stop your protestin’. It’s all I hear outta you, just whinin’ and complainin’.” 

Micah pulled the saddle from the door and threw it back where he found it, the leather as dry and unfed as it had been before. 

“Aw, where you goin’ now?” asked his father. “More errands for your little miss? Gonna go buy her a pair of nice britches and a skirt for yourself?” 

Micah pulled the barn door shut on his father’s howling laughter. He reached a hand around to where his side ached and dug his fingers in until the ache became an agony. Still he could hear his father chuckling to himself behind the door. 

He sneaked to the farmhouse, avoiding eyes where he could and pretending to look busy where he couldn’t. It was a swift but painful run, and as soon as he reached the building, he rapped his knuckles on the door at the back which led to the kitchen. Maggie opened it. 

“Aren’t you gonna do any work today, Mister Bell?” she asked, “I can’t cover an entire day for you, y’know.” 

“I know, I know. Can I talk to you? For a minute? For half a minute?” 

“Thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight-” 

“Inside? And don’t count like that I mean this.” 

Maggie bunched her lips to one side in faux-thought. “All right. You’re lucky Auntie Jean is in town and Uncle Roscoe is out with the herd,” she said, stepping aside to let him pass. 

Micah ran to the nearest chair and sat down, knees apart and hands clenched on top of them. 

Maggie frowned and perched herself in her Auntie’s chair, her notebook back in her lap. “What would you like to talk about?” she asked in a slow, cautious tone, one of her dark eyes half-shut in what he hoped wasn’t suspicion. 

“I, uh, I wanted to talk to you because...” he stopped, rubbed his chin, realized he’d need to shave soon. 

“Seventeen, sixteen...” she counted on. 

“Yesterday. Yesterday, when I said I had a small accident? You knew that was Couzens, didn’t you?” 

Maggie sat back in her armchair and turned her notebook around in her hands. “Yes.” 

“He always like that?” 

“Since he started. He works well but he likes to be in charge and goes after anyone new. He drove away the last two boys here. Uncle says he didn’t, but I know it. Did you really wanna see me so desperately about Jacob Couzens of all people?” 

Micah leaned forward and dipped his head. “Well, uh-” 

The front door exploded open and Roscoe marched in, the nails almost lifting away with the floorboards under his heavy boots. “Margaret-May, please run and tell the fellers,” he said, catching his breath, “run and tell ‘em we got rustlers up beyond the hill.” He ran to the fireplace and took down a rifle. 

Maggie stood and turned to hurry to the back door. Roscoe checked his ammunition and spotted Micah sitting shrinking in one of the chairs. “What’re you—can you ride, boy?” 

Micah shrank further. 

“I asked can you ride a horse, boy?” 

“I can,” Micah wheezed. 

“Then go get it! Get your father, get all the boys you can see, we’re leavin’ here five minutes ago. Go!” 

Micah got to his feet and followed after Maggie. He jumped from the back porch and hit the ground badly, his side burning, but he stumbled along and reached the stable. Already the men and other boys were leading out their horses, shouting and checking weapons. 

“Which one’s yours, blond boy?” asked an older man. 

“White one! White! His name’s Rage! Let me get him!” Micah pushed past another young ranch hand, nearly sending the boy sprawling under hoofs and boots. 

“No time! I’ll take him out the other side, go run around and get him!” 

Micah fought his way back out of the barn and was limping by the time the old rancher handed him Rage’s reigns. The horse wasn’t used to him, despite the lies he’d told about their bond. He jolted his head and neck back and whinnied a real fuss. Micah slapped him on the shoulder to calm him. 

His father and his black mare trotted over. “Get that thing under control, boy!” he said over the din, then turned the mare around and set off to join the others. 

Micah growled and forced himself up into the stirrups. Rage snorted and shook. Micah jammed his heels into the animal and urged him forward. The horse all but bolted and the movement pulled at his side. He came close to falling off, the horse steadying just in time to keep him upright. 

He drew alongside the boy who’d first told him about Maggie the afternoon previous. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked. 

“Rustlers! They’re tryin’ their hand before we put the animals away for Winter. It’s open range out there so it ain’t hard for them to reach ‘em. You got a weapon?” 

Micah’s heart lurched up into his throat and then fell back down. “No! No, I ain’t!” 

The boy said nothing. He was left with the pounding of hoofs on the grass, thundering and loud. 

“Be careful!” the boy finally said to him, moving ahead. 

Micah stared ahead at the rest of the men, at the hats on held-high heads, the raised pistols, the wide, confident gaits of their trusted horses. He couldn’t see his father in the pack, the man had already blended in, was already one of them. 

“Move!” he shouted to his horse, “we ain’t supposed to be at the back, c’mon! Move!” 

“Almost at the place!” a voice above him cried, the deep boom of Roscoe Briggs. “Ready yourselves, boys!” 

All Micah could do was tighten his grip on the reigns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ACTION MISSION START BABEY


	5. Gunshot

The cattle were still when they reached them. 

Briggs put up a hand and the company came to a stop. 

The cows ahead of them droned and shook their necks, tails flicking, unaware of anything untoward. Micah stopped his horse alongside his father and gave him a look. Not a one of the animals was skittish. 

“Mister Peters, Mister Stanfield, circle the herd, watch the trees,” said Briggs. 

A pair of men kicked their horses and took off on a wide arch around the cattle. 

“I don’t like this,” said Micah to his father. 

“Quiet,” said the old man, balancing his tongue on his lower lip and chewing it as he thought. 

Briggs appeared after instructing the others to either take point or stay near the herd. “Mister Bell, how good are you at hide and seek?” 

“Fair,” said his father, sucking his teeth and raising his eyebrows. 

“Would you mind taking yourself and your boy there across the way up that big hill to the rocks? It’s a popular spot for camps and such. A good vantage point. You see anythin’ you come on back. Don’t holler, just ride on back. We ain’t leavin’ till the place been checked proper.” 

“Beggin’ your pardon, Roscoe, but you need men here with the herd. If it’s just eyes you want and nothin’ else, my boy can go alone.” 

Micah glanced at his father, whose hard eyes were fixed on Briggs. Briggs nodded and pulled the reigns back on his old workhorse so he could line its head up with Micah’s. 

“All right. Make it fast, son. Quick look and then get out. Don’t go too close, case they’re hidin’. You see any evidence of folks havin’ been there in the last hour, you come back, you see me.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Master Bell,” said Briggs as he turned his horse about, “I mean what I said. Up and back. And if there’s people out there and they go for you, you make as much noise as you see fit and you run on back fast as that horse can bring you. We’ll do the rest.” 

Micah gave Briggs a terse nod, then focused a long stare on his father, twisting the reigns around his fingers. When his old man flashed his eyes at him he urged his horse forward toward the trees. 

The verdant slope above the evergreens was steep enough to make the horse’s feet skitter on loose rocks and slip on the mud of a well-trodden track. Fresh prints had crushed the grass at either side. Micah supposed that was all the evidence needed to prove to Briggs someone was in the area, lurking, but he pressed the white horse on. 

The rocks Briggs had ordered him to check stuck out from the earth like teeth, as if they’d burst from the ground and the beast they belonged to had died beneath it before it got the chance to emerge. Micah got down from his horse and walked the stark clearing. A clump of trees further up the hill shaded the place from the weak Autumn sun. 

A kicked-aside campfire, down to its last couple of puffs, lay scattered. Micah crouched in front of it and touched a finger to the kindling. Warm. 

“Was waitin’ on someone to show,” said a voice from the foliage. 

Micah closed his eyes. 

The sound of several bodies moved through the greenery, followed by the click of pistol hammers and low laughs. “Was gettin' impatient,” said the voice again. 

“That’s a funny thing to be,” said Micah turning his head to cast his eyes over his shoulder, “when you had all the time in the world to take all them cows.” 

“Get up. Slow-like.” 

Micah rose to his feet, hands raised. Almost immediately boots approached and hands slapped at his clothing. One of them got him on the side and made him twist away. Someone spun him by the back of the neck to face the man belonging to the voice. 

“You don’t look like no ranch hand,” said the man, working the point of his knife blade into the tip of a nail. 

Micah tugged his arm away from the fool holding him, then lashed out harder when the fool grasped him tighter. He writhed enough to force both men to throw him back over the old campfire. He rolled through it. Ash flew and brittle, black sticks snapped. He ended up sprawled and coughing on the other side of it. “That all you sons of bitches got?” he said. 

One of the men, wearing a flea-bitten green coat and brown gloves, lunged for him. Micah kicked out his heel and struck him in the shin, sent him hopping back with a yelp. “Get back!” he snapped. 

The leader threw back his head with a laugh. “Lord, this one’s angrier than the Devil when he was cast down outta Heaven! Pick up that thing and bring him here, Walker. Quit your playin’.” 

Walker, taking great care with the weight he put onto his left leg, snatched Micah by the lower arm and dragged him back through the old campfire, letting him drop at his boss’s feet. 

“What’s your name?” 

Micah spat dirt onto the man’s boot. “Ain’t tellin’ you, rustler.” 

“Rustler?” The big man stepped away and held up his arms, grinning. Nearly every tooth bore a black hole in the middle. He drew close again, sat down on his haunches and pointed a grubby hand to his men. “Maybe you’re a ranch hand after all. We boys is more than rustlers.” 

The boys were preparing for war. They were lining up in a row, their rifles resting over the rocks, their fingers flat against trigger guards and tapping, their eager breathing huffing through grins. 

“Mister Stone! We gotta do this soon, they's movin’ away from each other down there,” said Walker, stamping his good foot and aiming. 

Micah watched the men lower their heads to their rifle sights. He swallowed, tasted dirt and the iron tinge of blood. “Listen, take the cows. Take ‘em. I’ll let you. Them cows are worth more than what’s in men’s pockets,” he said, still moving backward on his tailbone. His hand pressed into the remains of the campfire’s ash. 

Stone scratched a finger under his lower lip and glanced up, as if in deep thought. Micah felt his pulse hammer in his wrists. Stone took long strides to where he’d shuffled and picked him up bodily by the lapel. Micah cringed and turned his face away. He heard Stone smile, heard the saliva stretch and smack across his teeth. 

“Cows don’t put up a fight. Cows don’t scream. Which is what I’m gonna need you to do, scout.” 

Stone’s knife flashed back in his hand. Micah hadn’t even seen him pocket it. The pale sun flashed on its surface before he felt it press to his neck. Stone flipped him about and faced him toward the rocks and his men, who were still strained with excitement, muscling each other like leashed pitbull dogs awaiting the release of their collars. “You know,” said Stone, his breath blowing through Micah’s hair at his ear, “it was real easy. Real easy. All we had to do was scare a few of those cows there, make sure we was seen by someone on the patrol and they all came a-runnin'. It’s always so easy.” 

“They ain’t got money,” Micah said, his voice small, his eyes trying to peer down his nose to look for the knife, his hands hooked around Stone’s arm and struggling to pull it away. 

“Money’s nothin’ compared to the fun of it, son!” Stone laughed. He turned the blade against Micah’s throat. Somehow the new edge felt sharper. “Now, are you gonna call out to them friends of yours down there or am I gonna have to do somethin’ awful to you?” 

“In’t scared of you.” 

“No? Sounds like you are. Looks like you are.” 

“Ain’t gonna be your goddamn bait.” 

Stone pushed him forward and kicked him in the back of the knee. Micah made sure to keep his mouth shut and yell through clenched teeth. 

“Only way up here is the trail you took, and we need them down there to line up along it like tin cans for us to knock down!” Stone used his boot to turn Micah onto his back. 

“Mister Stone!” shouted Walker. 

“Look here, little devil! You squeal out to ‘em down there and draw ‘em in to us and I’ll let you live, how’s that for a deal?” 

Micah curled up in the dirt, a hand holding his pants leg under the knee, the other held out in defense, quivering. “You’re a shitty liar, sir,” he said in a snarling laugh. 

“That’s a real cryin’ pity, boy,” said Stone, crouching over him. 

Micah looked up through the damp hair which had fallen into his eyes. Stone was angry. That was good. 

“You know, I really was hopin’ to keep you alive a tad longer,” Stone continued, the knife back in hand, flickering through his fingers slim and quick as a beam of light, “people always run faster and harder when they think there’s hope.” He lowered the knife, point first. 

“People don't always care about other people enough to want to hope for ‘em, sir. Don’t rely on it so much,” said Micah. He sat up as speedily as his aching side allowed, and grabbed for Stone’s gun, still in its holster. He wrapped whichever fingers made it onto the upside-down trigger first, used the other faltering fingers to knock back the hammer, and pulled. 

As the shot rang out and sent the round like a flash into the dirt behind Stone’s back, the knife sank into Micah’s arm. 

“Mister Stone!” shouted someone. He heard Stone roar and sensed him stagger to get up. 

“Get ‘em! Pick ‘em off now!” Stone said. Through his reeling vision, Micah saw him storming up and down, smacking the backs of heads and pulling rifles by the muzzles forward into aiming position. “Where are they?” 

“Been alerted! Heard the shot! Maybe they know another way up?” 

“There is no other way up! Hold this position!” 

Micah reached a shaking hand around to the knife. A fingertip brushed its handle. He glanced up with a gasp to see Stone advancing. With the cry he bet Stone had wanted him to scream, he yanked out the knife and rolled to one side in time to miss Stone’s heel and the full weight of the man it belonged to. 

“I’ll kill you, you little fuckin’ whelp!” Stone spat, the shouts of his men begging for orders ignored. 

Micah stood with his back to the trees, panting, gripping his arm, the sleeve growing heavy with blood, knife clutched in his trembling fist. 

Stone was bearing down on him with a hand at his holster, working the gun from it as he stalked across the clearing. The sound of his footsteps almost matched the drum of the pulse in Micah’s ears. 

Micah lifted his chin and took a shaky breath. It hurt. 

He ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mission success micah has run away like a little bitch


	6. Mad Blue Eyes

His shirt stuck to his shuddering palm when he pulled his hand from his arm. It came away from his skin with a damp crackle. The material was still wet around the wound. The knife rolled out of his other hand. 

Micah was on his knees in front of an old pine. He’d stopped for a second, just a second, which had turned into a minute, two minutes. His breath rattled through his narrow chest, his arm felt torn off. With a strained grunt, he peeled back the ripped sleeve hanging free on his upper arm and inspected the scarlet red of new blood still running and the deep plum of the inch-long injury. He swore the knife had slid in so far it had dented bone. 

His shoulders drooped and despite the shattering pain zigzagging down his arm, Micah swung both of his fists into the pine’s trunk. The thunk was quiet and left his hands black with mud. 

The undergrowth hissed on the slope below. 

Micah snapped up his head, a hand clasped around his arm again. 

“You here, wretch?” called Stone in his grating snarl. 

Micah shifted into a painful crouch. 

“I’ll cut out those mad, blue eyes o’ yours!” 

The knife. Micah scanned the ground for it. It was where he’d dropped it, no more than a few paces away from the dirt surrounding the pine’s base. 

Shouts and gunfire rocketed up behind Stone’s lanky figure down on the verge. Stone turned on his heel to listen and Micah lunged for the knife. Stone saw. 

“Hey! Come here!” 

Micah snatched at the knife, dropped it, picked it up again, stumbled, fell onto his bad arm, cried out, got up again. He headed up the slope but his progress was slow. His boots slipped on loose rocks. 

Stone’s bandy strides were fast, he was a man used to the hills. Micah crashed through branches and bracken and pushed himself from trees to force some forward momentum. Stone hadn’t fired on him, not once, and that made him try to move quicker. 

“Yer yeller, not facin’ me, boy,” said Stone, barely a waver in his voice from the effort of his jog. 

Micah was heaving in air like there was nothing left of it. His side stung with each haul. 

“All right, that’s enough. Can’t stand this sad sight no more,” said Stone with a laugh. 

A bullet split a rock and sent grass flying next to Micah’s foot. 

“Next one goes in the back of your neck, boy! Turn around!” 

Micah stopped, hunched, his head low, his teeth bared in defeat. “Don’t,” he said, his voice rounded, wobbly. 

“What was that?” Stone closed the gap between them, pistol still aloft. 

“Don’t kill me.” 

Stone swung Micah about by a fistful of hair and stood him up properly. Micah stared, tried to frown, felt what he thought was a defiant expression crumble. The knife was locked in his hand but didn’t move. It didn’t go into Stone’s arm or his gut or his thigh. It remained trembling at his side, forgotten. 

“I thought you had somethin’ in you back there. Thought you was somethin’. You got nothin’ in you at all. Yeller as yer hair, aren’t ya? _Oh, don’t kill me, please, mister awful man!”_ Stone cackled. 

Micah raised a shivering, bloody hand to his face, hiding his eyes. 

“You did make me look stupid back there, however. Real stupid. In front of my boys. And now they is fightin’ for their lives out there against your lot. That ain’t fair, I don’t think. And I can’t be havin’ them think I let people get away with ruinin’ our games, now. You might come back and ruin another.” 

Micah took his hand away from his face, felt the damp ends of his hair run across the backs of his fingers. 

Stone held out his palm. “Let’s be takin’ that offa you now,” he said, indicating with a jerk of his head the knife. 

Automatically Micah pressed the flat of the blade into Stone’s hand, his good arm moving without permission. He grimaced, watching his own shaking hand do it, give him up. 

“Thanking you, young sir. These is dangerous things for a child to have. Could, uh, could have an eye out with this.” 

Micah held up a hand in defense and took a step back. The muzzle of Stone’s pistol, the single, dark eye of the barrel, followed him. 

“Please, lemme go. I won’t do nothin’. I won’t say nothin’. You got my word on it. You can kill all those folks down there, rob ‘em blind, take the cattle, make all the money you want. My-my own father, he’s down there. And you can kill him, too. I won’t make no nevermind of it. I swear to you, I won’t take no revenge for that. You’ll never see me again, just let me walk.” Micah heard his voice rise up and down and creak in the middle as he spoke. His smile never made it past the lip wobble. 

Stone raised his eyebrows and drew his head back, his blink slow. “Well now. Well now,” he said in a meandering voice, his gun lowering and his smile simpering. “Don’t reckon I can trust a man who would betray his own daddy so easy. You really are a low-down yella-belly. All that fire was just smoke after all.” 

“No. No!” Micah put out both hands, his injured arm burning like a red-hot poker heated all the way down was lodged inside it, and took a few paces back. 

“I’m tired of you talkin’ now, kid. You been entertainin’. Disappointin’, but entertainin’.” Stone coughed ragged and twirled his pistol by its trigger guard before throwing it aside. 

Micah stared and continued to back away, his eyes tight and hot and his throat closing over. Hot, wet streaks ran down his face and he knew it wasn’t blood. “Why’d you do that? Why’d you do that, throw away your gun? Ain’t you gonna kill me?” 

Stone sniffed and rolled up a sleeve, made a face as he did it, as if he were a gentleman. No. As if he were a butcher. “Oh, I am. I am gonna, no doubts about that. But it’ll be slow. And it’ll be messy. My boys may lose their spoils today thanks to you, y’see. So, I need to provide them with something of value to keep ‘em sated, even if it’s only the skinny little insides of a stupid little boy who caused them a whole heap of grief. And I assure you, I always provide.” 

Micah tripped and hit the dirt and the dead leaves. His pulse bucked in his ribcage, made every part of him which smarted and ached and burned feel all the worse. 

Stone grinned. “Now, I know you said out there by the rocks that you wouldn’t scream, and I can respect that, you’re nearly a man. Nearly. But I think it’d be proper if you screamed this time, outta respect to me.” He leaned down and touched the knife under Micah’s chin, threatening to slice off the useless blond hairs trying to grow there. “At least you can be happy in knowin’ that you’ve resigned yourself to bein’ someone not worth savin’. Not worth hopin’ for. That was good advice, and I won’t be relyin’ on it, like you said. Means we got all the time in the world.” 

Stone drew back a hand. 

Micah froze, then slammed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. 

The first punch landed square onto the knife wound in his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MICAH DIED


	7. Blood, Rain

“Come on, little boy! Fight back!” 

Stone’s voice was distant, high and shrill like the quiet, cacophonous sound of the wrong note being played on a far-away violin. 

Micah was face down in the leaf litter again. He drew his good (as good as broken) arm under his chest and fixed his mind on making sure his lungs drew air in and out. 

“I seen more fight in jackrabbits, son! And they eat leaves! Y’aren’t makin’ this nowhere near fun enough for me.” 

The pines high above rattled. A wind picked up and carried through it a sheet of misty rain, washing away the light. Micah closed his eyes against it when it fell harder. Soon it was hissing down, turning dry, cold dirt to slick mud. His body shook. It was the cold in the rain. It had to be the cold. Not the beating. 

Water flicked from Stone’s hat and dribbled from the brim when he lowered his head. Somewhere below them the crack of faint gunfire echoed. 

Micah rolled onto his side, upper body quivering. The rain and the blood seeped into his pale shirt, turning it pink. 

“Y’know,” said Stone, sighing, pushing back his shoulders, slipping the end of his belt through its loops, “I once saw a man make another man bite off his own tongue.” The metal clasp of the belt clicked. “Yessir, they had a man tied to a chair in a den I was in someplace away from here. He was lashed down by his wrists and his ankles. Been like that for a long ol’ time. Chair was nailed down, too. Thought that was funny, what had they gone and done that for? Then this feller, he got up behind this man, belt in hand. Thought he was just gonna lash him good. But instead, what he did was, he hooked it under this man’s chin. Loose to start, like the first sweet touch o’ the rope they want us hangin’ from. Then what he did, he grabbed the man’s jaw as if he was a bad dog, forced his mouth open, waited till his tongue went over his teeth and there! He pulled back on the belt with one hand, trapped it like so. All he needed to do was tug back on that belt, slow, fast, didn’t matter. That poor man’s teeth bit right through that tongue. Oh boy, there was blood everwhere. Absolutely everwhere.” 

Stone paused, his belt halfway slung around his waist. He snorted a laugh and slid it back on, rebuckled it. “Too bad we ain’t got a chair, ain’t it?” 

Micah tried again to push himself up with the arm he lay on. His hands were wet and numb and something thicker than rainwater was rolling down his temple to wobble in beads under his jaw. 

“All right,” said Stone, taking off his hat and running a hand through his hair, “let’s get to it then, if that’s it.” 

Stone wedged the toe of his boot under Micah’s stinging side and rolled him onto his back. Micah’s hand shook as he shielded his face. His bad arm he kept tucked under his body. There was something sharp driving into his kidney. A rock. He started to dig his numb fingers around it, cracking his nails and splitting his skin to work it out of the ground. 

“Last chance to sass me, boy,” said Stone, knife back in hand. With his free hand he hauled Micah up into sitting and half-crouched in front of him. He spun the knife a few times and then hovered the point over the stab wound on Micah’s upper arm. “Think I’ll start the flayin’ here. Already made a hole, after all.” 

Micah saw and, with a surge of fading energy, grabbed Stone’s wrist and held it. The tremor traveled up Stone’s arm to his shoulder, even made Stone’s chin-length hair tremble there was such a shake. 

“That,” said Stone with a smirk, “was a valiant final effort.” 

Micah stared directly at Stone’s dull, brown eyes, at the tiny red veins, at the yellow staining the corners of the whites. Rain ran down Stone’s shining forehead. “Ain’t my final effort, you son of a bitch,” said Micah through bared teeth. 

He raised his bad arm, twisted his body aside, pulled Stone’s arm straight and slammed the rock he’d been hiding behind his back into Stone’s elbow. 

Stone toppled with a surprised grunt. Micah scrambled to get out from beneath him, kicking and jabbing until he was free. His legs were heavy as timber poles when he tried to stand, and he didn’t make it more than two steps before he was down again. The rock fell from his limp fingers to splash into the mud. His breathing was noisy, gasping. Blood drooled from his mouth, the heels of his hands sank into the soft earth. 

Stone groaned a few paces away down the hill, holding his arm and recovering from his fall. 

Micah swung his head aside and glared through dripping curtains of hair, now more brown than blond with muck. The rain roared down. A shaking hand reached out for the rock again. 

Stone’s leather coat was slippery, but when Micah finally gripped the collar and pulled Stone toward him, the look on his face before the crunch of the rock sprayed blood across it was enough. Enough to make him strike his skull again. 

He wasn’t dead. The blows had been more drops than hits with real weight, but they’d dazed Stone enough to make him keel over, send his heavy body tumbling down the hill a few feet. Micah threw the rock and pursued, still limping, side still burning, hands still numb, temple, mouth, eyebrow still bleeding fresh. 

Micah hit Stone as many times as he could count, and then when he lost count, started again from one. Soon there was more blood than skin on Stone’s face, who was barely blinking through it all, his hands weakly clawing the air at his sides. The dull thud of knuckles on cheekbones was lost in the rain. 

Thunder. Hoof beats. Micah looked up, still snarling, a scarlet-red fist poised for the next punch. Stone’s boys. He got up, adrenaline keeping him standing, and held both hands out to his sides, panting. “I’ll kill you, too!” he shouted over the gale. 

The front horse turned and the man halted the brigade behind him. He jumped down with heavy footing and sloshed through the mud up the hill. 

Micah bent over Stone and rummaged through his coat for the knife. He couldn’t find it. Stone had dropped it up the hill. He had nothing with which to fend off his vengeful men. 

The man approaching swept down on him and Micah swung out a fist. The man caught it in his huge hand and crushed his fingers. 

“Let go! Let go, you bastard, I’ll kill you!” 

The man did nothing but hold his trapped hand fast. 

“Let go! Let go... I’ll...” Micah’s wild energy dissipated. His knees gave. The man’s other hand caught him around the shoulders and took his shirt at the back before he hit the ground. 

“It’s okay. I got you,” said Briggs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chill tf out mike!!!!


	8. Glass

They’d slung Stone onto the back of Briggs’s horse, much to the animal’s discomfort. Micah could see his tied hands hanging limp over the horse’s thigh and hear him groaning through his semi-consciousness. Blood dripped from the ends of his hair. 

Briggs snapped his fingers. Micah blinked. 

“Stay with me, son. How many fingers am I holdin’ up?” said Briggs. 

Micah narrowed his eyes. “Fingers,” he said. 

Briggs smiled. “Good enough.” 

Peters led Micah’s horse over. Rage was still snorting and tossing his head. Rain ran like sheets down his white neck. 

Briggs took him by the good shoulder and squeezed it. “Can you ride?” 

Micah nodded, frowned, exhaled. His next breath in caused his shoulders to hitch up and the tendons in his neck to tighten. He flew a hand to his face and covered as much of it as he could with bloody fingers. He shook his head. 

“All right,” said Briggs, giving him an affirming shake, “Mister Peters? Would you be so kind as to take the young man with you down the hill?” 

Peters looked over, a thin young man with mousey hair and a round face. His mouth was small and barely moved when he smiled. “You got it, boss.” 

Briggs leaned down to Micah. “You go with Peters. He’ll ride slow so it don’t hurt you more and we’ll get that arm looked at when we get back. Here.” Briggs reached to his neck and pulled on the knot in his neckerchief. He took it off and twisted it in both hands. Micah didn’t move and stared into the trees beyond Briggs’s shoulder when it was tied firmly around his arm. His vision blurred. 

“That’ll hold it together for a short while, at least. Jean’s better at this than me.” Briggs offered an encouraging smile and stood up straight. 

“Sir,” said the man called Stanfield as he approached Briggs, “found this a ways up the hill.” Stanfield held up Stone’s revolver by the barrel and slapped the grip into Briggs’s waiting palm. 

Briggs turned it around in his hands and used a finger to wipe a layer of mud and grass from the muzzle. He looked over at Micah, who felt his eyes on him and lowered his chin to his chest. “How about you take this one? I’d say you earned it. I’ll keep ahold of it for now. I’ll give it you soon as we get it a holster. Sound good?” 

“Sounds good,” said Micah, still looking at the toes of his boots. 

Briggs paused. “Hey, listen, you’re okay, son,” he said, going to a knee in front of Micah so he could look up at him. Micah resisted the urge to glance away, instead forcing himself to meet Briggs’s warm brown eyes. “It is done. Pay it no further heed. Don’t give that man there the satisfaction.” 

Micah followed Briggs’s pointing finger to Stone’s limp form. He breathed in, opened mouthed, and the air passing behind his teeth and over his tongue was suddenly all he could hear, and Stone was all he could see. 

Briggs stood and waved him to Peters and his horse. The need to show off there was still use left in him made Micah get onto the horse himself, no matter the pain. One swing into the saddle, one huge pang of agony. Peters settled up in front. 

The horses trailed down from the hillside. Peters kept his horse slow, as Briggs had promised. The rain eased and turned to a spitting mist. 

“I have to thank you,” said Briggs after a moment. He’d stayed behind with them to the annoyance of his horse, which was clearly keen to join the others ahead. 

“Thank me?” Micah replied. 

“For your mercy.” 

“My mercy?” Micah looked up, eyes wide and stinging. 

They reached Stone’s camp. 

Briggs’s boys were hauling bodies. Almost a dozen had been dragged to the tall, standing rocks, lined up and left sprawled. The rain had washed their blood across the clearing. Micah spotted two surviving men, tied and curled up, lying by the horses. Both were spluttering and murmuring. One was growing quieter by the second, his brown jacket steadily turning dark red. 

Briggs stopped his horse. Peters drew his up close. 

“Your father is quite the crack shot,” said Briggs. His voice was sharp, fast, spoken through teeth. 

“Where is he?” came a call. Micah’s heart thudded in his ears. 

His father half-ran across the camp, pushing aside any man in his way. Micah started to slide off the horse. Briggs put out a hand to stop him. 

“Get down, boy, come on,” said his father, out of breath. His slicked hair was falling away from the tonic’s hold and stray strands stuck up on their ends. 

“Mister Bell, might I remind you the boy’s been through a lot and needs no more excitement?” said Briggs, turning his horse to block his father in. 

“Mister Briggs,” said his father in a hissed laugh, “that’s my boy, not yours. I’ll see to him now.” 

Micah saw Briggs and his father glower at each other like two warring animals, each thinking the other was prey. Briggs relinquished finally, moving his horse aside and taking it and his cargo to the rest. Micah stared after him until his father grabbed him by the leg. 

“Get down here.” 

Micah obeyed. His knees buckled when he hit the ground. Peters was swift to disappear, leaving old Rage behind. 

“Lemme get a look at what you let him do to you, c’mere,” said his father, grabbing him by an arm and tugging him close. He took a handful of the hair above his ear and twisted his head around to face the dim afternoon light. “Look at that, you really let him lay into you, huh? Let him do so much I wonder if you enjoyed it.” 

“I didn’t. Lemme go.” 

“Why didn’t you kill him?” 

Micah went still. 

“I said why didn’t you kill him?” 

Micah cast his gaze away. “Briggs showed up. I came to my senses.” 

“Senses? Your senses are the things that make you kill him. Your senses is the instinct.” 

“You use your senses to kill all these men here?” 

His father snorted and snaked around to his other side and stood behind him, clasped both of his hands on Micah’s shoulders, almost touched temples with him. “This was like stompin’ on bugs, boy. Always is. They was insects. Liars, thieves, killers. They was gonna kill Briggs and his boys. I saved ‘em. And they’re grateful.” 

Micah winced as he tried shrugged his father away. The old man clutched him harder. “We is liars and thieves,” said Micah in a weak voice. 

“We is. And better than these ones because we ain’t dead.” 

“You’re hurtin’ me.” 

His father’s smirk vanished. He gave Micah a shove in the sternum and started walking him backward towards the trees. “Always with that womanly excuse. Sick of hearin’ complaints outta you. Ain’t nothin’ here to hurt. A couple of light taps to the face, one small knife in the muscle of your arm. Nothin’ of this should hurt. You’re gonna have worse one day. One day you’re gonna get shot. Maybe someplace bad. Then you’ll be hurtin’. And when that day comes? You can complain. But silently. In your mind.” 

“Mister Bell!” said Briggs from the other side of the camp. “Mister Bell, we’re movin’ on out.” 

His father stared, his top lip curling. “Yessir, Mister Briggs,” he said without taking his eyes from Micah’s. “Get on that horse of yours. Ride yourself back like a man should.” 

“My arm ain’t up to it,” said Micah in an annoyed whisper. 

His father batted him on the top of his head. Micah ducked but not quite in time. “Get on that horse!” his old man said, pointing a finger under his nose. His father jutted out his jaw, scowled so deeply his eyebrows almost covered his eyes completely, then turned on his heel and went to his own horse. 

Micah mounted up and waited for Rage to quiet down. His arm he left to hang useless at his side. With the reigns in one hand he rode forward, followed the others down to the valley. He saw as he passed the bodies of Stone’s boys, their own threadbare blankets tossed over them. Briggs would send his men back for them, to bury or burn. Perhaps he’d send nobody back at all. 

\--- 

Briggs took Stanfield and Peters with him to Cranberry that evening. Stone and one of the two men they’d found alive (the other died on the back of a horse during the trip back to the ranch) needed dropping off with the deputies. 

The air was crisp, cold and tense. Anyone who moved around finishing up their tasks did so without words to one another. Micah had taken himself to the back of the farmhouse and was splashing old water from a barrel onto his face. He clung to the edges of it, his arm sore and his chest heaving again. The water settled and he was glad of the dark preventing him from seeing his reflection. 

A shaft of yellow light fell onto the ground. The kitchen door was open. Maggie held onto the handle, one boot sticking out of her dress as she swung around on it. “Would you get inside already? The water is better in here,” she said. 

“Is there a difference between the water in there and the water out here?” he asked in a flat tone. 

Maggie closed her eyes and sighed. “There is,” she said, reopening them and bunching her mouth to one side. 

Micah dropped his hands into the water and looked at her. 

“That water’s for the animals. Are you an animal, Micah Bell?” she said, bowing her head, smiling and swinging on the door. 

He drew his hands back out of the water and wiped them on his shirt. Maggie swirled back into the kitchen. 

Inside was warm and unfortunately bright. Micah kept his head low, even when Maggie pulled out a stool for him. He perched on it and listened to her bustle. 

“I heard about what happened,” said Maggie, wringing a wet cloth into a dish, “I’m sorry.” 

He felt a snide look creep onto his face. “Why? Did you do it?” 

Maggie stopped. He heard her clothing shuffle as she turned to look at him. 

“It’s what you say. When you hear something horrible. Will you look at me for a moment so I can get some of that blood offa you?” 

Micah shrank and hung his head lower. Maggie crouched, took him by the chin and lifted his face up. He gave a cringe; her fingers were gripping sore spots. “Sorry,” she said, “I did do that, so I can say it.” 

Silence fell. He shook on the stool, cradling his arm, only protesting every now and again to Maggie’s strangely hard press with the cloth. 

“Your daddy killed a lot of those men out there, didn’t he?” she said. 

Micah opened an eye and looked at Maggie. She seemed sad. Sad for the dead, perhaps, or sad for his father for killing them. 

“He seems in good spirits, considering that. He must be a strong person,” she continued, dropping the cloth into its dish now that it had turned pink and dry. 

“He saved your uncle. He saved everyone,” said Micah. 

“He didn’t save you,” Maggie replied, her hand going to touch his knee. He fought back a flinch. “You did all that with the leader of those dogs yourself. Makes you a strong person, too. Besides, I’ve sat Jacob Couzens down on this exact same stool with nothin’ more than a bruised hand and he made more fuss than anythin’ I’ve ever seen, so you’re at least tougher than that fool.” 

Micah tried a smile. Again, it ended up wonky. He expected Maggie would interpret it as another grimace. 

She stood up before he could crawl his fingers to reach hers on his leg. He slammed his hand back onto the stool and gave her a cringe of a smirk when she looked about to him, interrupting her washing of the rag. She smiled back. She smiled back and all he could do was let a shuddering breath shake through him. 

Maggie’s expression turned to worry and she went back to her knee in front of him, leaving behind the cloth. She reached up a hand to his face and he leaned right back, eyes wide, close to keeling off the stool. She frowned and pressed her thumb onto his cheekbone, then swept it up and under his eye. She withdrew her hand and showed the pad of her thumb to him. It was wet. 

“Missed some blood,” she said with a raised brow and a wide smile. 

He wheezed a laugh and rubbed the heel of his hand over his other eye in case she had to repeat her gesture. 

Jean Briggs arrived in a flurry of tutting and flapping of arms. Maggie jumped to her feet and clasped her hands behind her back. Micah saw her rub the wet on her thumb away with her forefinger. 

“Auntie Jeanie, he’s okay, just a little battered,” said Maggie, standing aside to let her aunt through. 

“Thank you, Margaret-May,” said Jean, rolling up her dress sleeves and catching sight of her patient, “oh, look at you. Look like you’ve seen two wars, not two days of ranchin’.” 

Jean clicked her tongue and went to inspect his arm. She carefully undid her husband’s blood-soaked neckerchief and tore through the sleeve beneath. “Have to throw this shirt away. Do you have others?” she asked, already ripping it. 

“Yes, mam. Back at the room in town.” 

“That’s good. I’m afraid to say this time you must have stitches. The wound’s little, but wide. I’ve seen worse, don’t worry. Margaret-May, would you fetch my kit?” 

Maggie rushed away and returned in record time with Jean’s bag. Jean began preparing the thread. Micah paled. “I’ll fix this together for tonight for you, but in the morning you ought to see a doctor about it, just to be sure.” She turned his arm to the light of the candles on the table. “I am sorry to have to hurt you one more time.” 

He closed his eyes as the candle's flame flashed across the needle. 

\--- 

“Maggie-May?” 

Maggie took her hand from her chin and sat back in her chair. “Yes?” 

Micah cleared his throat and leaned forward over the kitchen table, his bad arm wrapped neatly. “I was wondrin’... I think I’d like to stay here tonight. On account of bein’... because I’m tired and I think it’s late. I-I can sleep on the floor here, don’t even need no blankets.” 

Maggie buried her hands in the folds of her dress on her lap. “I’d have to ask Auntie Jeanie and Uncle Roscoe. They don’t usually got the room for guests, or the time. But I think, with what’s happened, they’d agree.” 

“I’d like that. If they could say yes, I mean.” 

“The rooms in Cranberry aren’t too nice, then?” she asked. 

“Room’s fine. More than that. It’s the company.” 

“What do you mean-” 

The front door opened. Briggs stepped inside and tapped the toes of his boots on the mat. “Jean?” he called, then he appeared at the kitchen door. Micah sat up. 

“Young Mister Bell,” he said, taking off his hat and keeping an arm hidden at his back. “Glad to see you’re still here. You’re looking better. Less blood on you, anyways.” He stepped further into the room and revealed from behind him a brand-new belt and holster. He pushed it across the kitchen table to Micah’s waiting hands. “Soon as we dropped our friend Stone at the sheriff’s I went straight to Mister Appleton for this. He said he was closing up shop for the night but I said no sir, I need something right now for someone. He obliged and then some. I hope it satisfies.” 

Micah ran his hand across the smooth surface. Nothing leather he’d ever stolen had been so without cracks and lines. It was clear as wood. Stone’s revolver was clipped into the holster and he saw it had been cleaned. “It’s perfect,” he whispered. Immediately he coughed and stood up, holding the belt as if it was embedded with jewels. “It’s perfect, Mister Briggs, sir.” 

Briggs nodded and held his hat against his chest. 

“Uncle?” Maggie said, rising and going to him, “Micah has asked he stay the night. He doesn’t like the room in town all that much and with his arm and how tired he is, it’d only be a help to him if we let him.” 

A knock sounded at the door. Jean crossed through the room beyond Briggs to answer it, brushing her hands on her dress. 

Briggs tapped his fingers on the crown of his hat. “All right. We can put you up in the main room. Or in here, whichever takes your fancy.” 

“Neither will take his fancy, Mister Briggs,” said his father, stepping in and rolling his shoulders, “because he will be with me in Cranberry.” 

Micah went to Maggie and pushed the belt and holster into her arms. “Look after this for me,” he murmured to her, unable to look her in the eye. He walked past Briggs and his father and went to the front door. Jean caught him before he could open it. 

“You’ll need a thick coat out there,” she said, unfurling a large hunting jacket and draping it over his shoulders. Micah pulled the collar around his neck and left without glancing back. 

Once he was outdoors, he sighed and watched his breath swirl like smoke up into the stars. He slumped against the farmhouse wall and yanked the coat up over his head, then let his expression drop, let his aching shoulders lower. The coat smelled of wool and oil. It must have been one of Briggs’s. 

The door flew open and his father stepped out onto the boards. He fixed his cuffs and looked aside. “Why ain’t you ready with the horses?” he said. 

“I wanna walk,” Micah said. 

“You wanna walk?” 

“That’s what I said, you got cloth for ears?” 

His father drew his head back like a rattler. He went to grab Micah but Micah dodged him, stumbling backward. “I’m walkin’. Get your own damn horse,” he said, turning as fast as he could and setting off down the track. 

Not two minutes later, his father and the black mare thundered past him on the road. Micah stopped and waited for the rush of wind in his wake to drop before walking on. 

\--- 

His father was drunk by the time he reached Cranberry’s saloon. No doubt celebrating his victory against Stone’s boys. Micah slipped inside and kept the hunting jacket’s collar high. The old man was slapping the bar and waving his glass in some other old drunk bastard’s face. Micah chose a place at the end of the counter and leaned on it as best as his arm allowed. 

“There he is!” said his father. Already spotted. Too easily spotted. 

Micah turned his face away. 

“C’mere! Hey, hey, this is the big hero I was tellin’ you about! Took ol’ Rayland Stone down in one hit! C’mere! Tell these fine gentlemen all about your duel!” 

Micah slumped, then got up and trudged to his father’s side. The old man looped an arm around his neck and hauled him into the circle. Micah felt his bad arm brush up hard against his father’s chest. He clenched his teeth. 

“Tell ‘em all about it, son,” said his father, squeezing him. 

“You’re drunk,” said Micah, trying to push him off. 

“That I am, that I am! For good reason! Brought a whole gang to its knees between us, didn’t we? That’s right, all them boys, killed for who cares what they did. Except, of course, one of ‘em, eh, boy?” His father let him go and the other men in his temporary friend group laughed. 

Micah fixed the jacket and stood as high as his height let him. “Shut your damn yap. I did what I did, that’s that.” 

“Ah, that’s ‘coz you’re weak, son. You’re weak. You was born weak. A mewling little pink runt, that was what you was. Here, show these gents where they messed up cutting you off your momma,” said his father, laughing and turning to the others. “See, he was so weak he just wouldn’t get outta this woman I took. Probably knew he’d never make it long. Had to chop him all funny to separate ‘em both. C’mon, lift your shirt, boy, let ‘em have a good laugh.” 

Micah shoved his father aside and snatched the glass from his hand. He tipped the booze onto the bar and slammed the glass onto the counter hard enough to shatter it. 

His father widened his eyes, held up his hands in mock-surrender, then laughed, long and honking. His friends, drunk as he was, caught his laughter and all ended up with heads tipped back and shoulders shaking. 

“I’ll just get another glass!” shouted his father at his back as he left, “they’re just like women! Just like sons! If you break ‘em, get another!” 

Micah went up to the rooms and fumbled for the key, left his father’s wild chortling behind. He shouldered the door when he got it open and dared to sit on the only bed. The one his father used. He hunched over and drew his hand up in front of him. There was no glass, but there were plenty of cuts. He watched the blood bead and ooze, red as berry, and thought about how, not too long ago that night, he’d been holding a gleaming new belt and almost managed to touch Maggie-May's hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one's so long????? uhhhh?? i also straight up didnt reread this after finishing it so sorry for mistakes yall 2 ppl who read this??? kfdjglkdf


	9. Lady Writer

“You like that girl.” 

Micah stopped with a foot halfway inside a boot. 

His father, sat on the bed, leaned down with his hands clasped together between his knees. “You want her, you take her.” 

“She don’t like me,” Micah said as he pulled his boot on and got to his feet. 

“Don’t matter. That don’t matter when you have a woman,” said his father with a sly smile, “long as you want her, that’s all there is.” 

Micah frowned, turned on his heel, faced his father. “That true?” he asked. 

“It is. My daddy told me. And I’m tellin’ you. It’s what they’re for.” 

A quietness fell between them for a long second. “We’ll be late if you keep on sittin’ around like that,” Micah said, buttoning the collar on his new shirt. It was dark red. He missed the white one with the blue stripes. It had been thrown away, too ruined to recover. 

“You gonna work with that hand?” 

Micah looked down at the handkerchief he’d tied around his fingers. “I’ll try. Like you say. We got jobs now, so I gotta work.” 

“Wouldn’t have hurt it if you hadn’t broke that glass.” 

“Wouldn’t have broke that glass if you hadn’t been laughin’ at me.” 

“Then don’t be so laughable.” 

Micah drove a thumbnail into the material covering a cut on his palm. He dug it in until he couldn’t bear either the pain or his father. “I’m goin’ on ahead,” he said when he reached the doorway. He heard his father scoff. When no insult followed, Micah closed the door behind him. 

\--- 

Maggie was running up the track. She tore up the road with the same wild run she’d used the afternoon he’d first seen her. Her skirts flew behind her again. She slowed to a heavy jog, and then he realized she had been running to meet him. He stopped his horse. 

“Micah Bell! You’re with me,” she said between breaths. 

“What?” he said, glancing around with narrowed eyes. 

“What I mean to say is you’re spending today with me. It’s Uncle Roscoe’s say so, so don’t argue. He said you weren’t to do any outdoors work with that arm, so we’re gonna get to doing other things. Go on, go take your horse to the stable and meet me in the kitchen, okay?” 

“Sure,” he said, overwhelmed. Still, he took Rage to the stables and handed him over to the older man he’d seen the day before. 

As the older man left, a bucket skittered across the straw and the stone and clattered against the back of Micah’s calf. He looked down at it. 

“What was your name again?” asked Couzens, running a thumb under his nose and materializing out of the darkness. “Michael?” 

“You lookin’ for another beatin’, boy?” said Micah, flexing his bad fingers and massaging his wrist. 

“Callin’ me boy?” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Son.” 

Couzens almost swallowed his own words as he gaped. “You know how long I been here? A whole of a lot longer than you.” 

“And there I was thinkin’ for a second that you could count.” Micah tilted his head and feigned a sad expression. 

Couzens stalked over, but before he could curl his fingers into a fist, Micah grabbed him by the throat with his bandaged hand. “You know what I did to that outlaw out in the hills? You wanna know what I did to him? I caved his skull in with a rock. Cracked like an egg. I hit him until he ran outta blood. Want me to do the same to you? How about with a horseshoe, or maybe that bucket you rolled over.” 

Couzens slapped Micah’s hand away. The cuts underneath the handkerchief had reopened and left behind a bloody smear on Couzens’s neck where they had soaked through the cloth. Couzens wheezed and nursed his throat. 

“I’m gonna get rid of you, Bell. You and your lunatic daddy. You’re both of you lunatics!” 

Micah struck Couzens right across the jaw. It snapped the older boy’s head aside and he hit the floor. “Talk that way about me or my daddy again and I’ll get rid of you first,” said Micah, eyebrows raised and stinging. 

Couzens scrambled to his feet and nearly fell again as he retreated to the stable’s opposite doors, still holding his neck. Micah shook his hand. Blood flecked the stone. 

\--- 

“I’d like to ask you a question and please don’t take offense to it,” said Maggie, sitting on her knees on a chair at the kitchen table. 

Micah was seated opposite and playing with the handkerchief. “I don’t ever take offense,” he replied. 

Maggie breathed in and tapped her hands on the table, as if it was taking huge amounts of effort to build the courage to pose her query. “Can you read and write?” 

Micah glanced up and accidentally met her eyes. He returned his gaze to his hands and wrung them together. “As good as you can.” 

“Oh, really?” said Maggie, crossing her arms. She jumped up, left the room and ran back in with a blank sheet and an ink pen. She slapped them in front of Micah and spun the pen on the paper. “Show me. Show me that you write as good as me.” 

Micah picked up the pen with his good hand. 

Maggie smoothed a fold in her dress and shuffled her knees on her chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see that you hurt your hand yesterday, too.” 

“It weren’t yesterday, it was at night in town. Ain’t nothin’. Isn’t my writin’ hand, but I-I can use both pretty good.” 

“Did you go see a doctor this morning? For your arm?” 

“I did,” he lied, gnawing on his lower lip, “said it were fine.” 

Maggie smiled. “Good. Okay, write anything. Your name. My name. A sentence.” 

He cleared his throat and hooked an arm around the paper so Maggie couldn’t see, then scrawled his name in all capitals. He gave the sheet of paper a sheepish push across the table to her once he’d finished. 

Maggie picked it up and turned her head. “Your letters go up and down like the sea, did you know that?” she said. 

“Sorry,” Micah said, back to fidgeting with the handkerchief. 

“Don’t be saying sorry about something like that. I think it’s nice. You pass the test.” 

“Pretty easy test,” he said, twirling the pen in his fingers. Maggie reached over to take it. 

“Reason I asked you to write something was so I could see if you’d be up to the real task,” she said. Maggie got up and crossed to sit next to him. 

Micah leaned back in his chair and used his bandaged hand to cover the lower half of his face, pretending to be in distant thought. 

“Listen,” she said, “remember those letters I asked you to mail for me? Those were letters to magazines. Literary ones. For my stories. Now, I know writers who are gals aren’t rare anymore, Lucy Larcom, Julia Ward Howe, but I wanna be the next one. Unfortunately, the men who run these magazines are still a tad old-fashioned to say the least. They take one look at my name, my handwriting, and I know they don’t wanna give me a chance. I think it’s because the war’s been over for twelve years and there’s nothing to talk about anymore. I am not much interested in war, but I am interested in writing. So, I got to thinking, what if I got a boy to write my letters in his hand? I’d use initials for my name and they’d open those letters because the writing would appear as a man’s.” 

Micah stared, swapped the hand propping up his chin. “Wouldn’t... wouldn’t they know you was a girl when they see your stories and the handwritin'?” 

“Well,” said Maggie, lifting her head, “what I expect will happen is they will be so convinced by my work that they forget I’m a lady and publish it.” 

“That’s your plan?” he asked, still covering his mouth with his fingers. 

“That’s my plan. It won’t be difficult. I’ll write the letters first and you may copy them. But you must spell correctly. That’s important.” 

“Why don’t you ask Jake Couzens to do it? Or his friend?” 

“Do you really think they’d be interested in doing this for me? Besides, I know their writing is atrocious.” She laughed, apparently recalling a joke too niche to share. He didn’t mind that, as long as he got to watch her laugh about it. Maggie stopped with an embarrassed cough, fixed her hair back behind her shoulders again and exhaled a last little giggle. She saw him gawping. “You know, you don’t have to say yes to this. I’m not going to force you if you don’t wish to. But I thought it might be a good thing to occupy you, considering your arm. Do you want to?” 

Micah dared to sit forward, his hand sliding down his chin to rest in his lap. “Do I want to what?” 

“Write for me. Just a few letters. I think it might work.” 

He gazed across the room to the dull window above the metal sink basin. Through the dingy smudges he caught sight of Couzens pacing and peering in. “I’ll do it,” he said, twisting around to face Maggie again, “if you stay.” 

Maggie folded her arms and held onto her upper arms. “I have other things to be getting on with, Mister Bell. I can’t sit with you the whole time.” She stood away from him and went to the tall cabinet. From one of the cupboards she pulled the holster and belt her uncle had brought home the previous evening. 

Micah watched her. 

“Why didn’t you take this into town with you? It’s a fine belt and my uncle had to ask a special favor to get it for you. He thought it strange that you gave it to me when you left.” She stroked a thumb over the leather. 

“He’da taken it from me.” Micah rose a hand to his face again. It felt hot. 

“Who? Your daddy?” 

“If he... if he saw that he’d take it. Say it belonged to him. He does that a lot. Always takes the best spoils for hisself.” 

Maggie frowned. Her smile was faint. “Spoils?” 

A surge of cold sweat heated his back. “Things. Meant to say things. I think maybe I should get writin’, don’t you?” 

Maggie stood there, quiet, then slid the belt back into the cupboard. Her voice was slower when she spoke next. “Sure. I’ll get my copies. Stay there.” 

Micah waited until she left the room before he wilted in his seat. He sighed loudly and clasped a fistful of hair, squeezing it until the roots hurt. Casting his eyes over the table between his elbows, Micah followed every knot and swirl in the wood as he thought. Did she suspect, like his old man had said that first night? He let his breath weigh heavy in his chest. 

Maggie spoke. He looked up. 

“I said are you feeling all right?” she asked, bent at her hip to one side, her papers in her hands and raised to her chest. 

“Yep. Yes." 

Maggie huffed and went back to smiling. She made two piles of papers; her templates and the blank sheets. She placed the ink pen evenly between them, even gave it a little flourish with her hand. “Thank you. For tryin’ for me. Means a lot.” 

All he could do was wince a smile and give the window another hasty look. 

He would have to take extra care to make sure that was the first and last slip-up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's just talkin this time, just some chitter chatter.


	10. The Barn

A true writer’s handwriting ought to have been neat, precise, well-spaced. Perhaps full of the fancy loops and curls he’d seen in the signatures of rich folk. Micah’s was none of those things. The greatest compliment it could have been paid was the fact that, simply, it was writing of a sort. He tried his best not to restart too many times and waste Maggie’s good paper, but some of the words were beyond him, and writing them became more like a drawing exercise. 

Maggie returned after two hours, her dress sleeves rolled up and a damp towel in her hands. “How’s it going? You’re not struggling, are you?” 

Micah sat up and the pen flew out of his hand. He chased it around the table and slapped a hand onto it to stop it rolling over the edge. “Uh, uh, no. No, it’s fine, I been doin’ good with it. I think,” he said, spinning a sheet around to show her. 

She draped the towel over her arm and leaned down to inspect his work. He waited for her verdict, waited for her to ask him to do it all over again. 

“Who taught you to read and write?” she asked, still reading his copy of her letter. 

“I don’t remember,” he lied. 

“You don’t remember?” Maggie said with a snort. She straightened up and rifled through the rest of his letters. “I think,” she said with a hum and a nod, “with a little doctoring, these will work. It’s a silly idea, but silly ideas are free so I say take ‘em when you get ‘em.” 

“Those are really gonna fool some stuck-up old fossil running a magazine?” he asked, rubbing his chin and staining the blond bristles with dark ink from his fingers. 

Maggie rustled the papers and lined up their corners. “I think they’ll fool the stuck-up old fossil long enough, yes.” She cleared her throat and looked up at him once the letters were tidy. With a smirk she bundled up the towel and threw it at him. 

Micah caught the towel and took a step back. “What's this for?” he said, glancing from towel to Maggie and back. 

“Take a look in the glass of that cabinet and you’ll see,” said Maggie, leaving the room with the letters. 

Micah watched her go, then stared at the glass panels set into the large cabinet’s doors as if it had grown eyes and was glowering back. He’d made a point of avoiding mirrors ever since he'd learned people had different faces and his wasn't a very good one. Still, he crept closer to it, and only when it didn’t shatter and fall away in shards did he meet his own eyes in the dim glass. The darkness of the room helped. All he could really make out were the parts of his face still red and pink and purple. He supposed he should thank the various injuries and swellings that they covered so much of his features. His hair was almost in his eyes, so he pushed it all back up only for it to flop down again. Finally he saw what Maggie had smirked at. With a tut he ran the damp towel down his mouth and chin. 

Maggie reappeared, this time with envelopes. She folded the last one down and pressed her fingers along it. “I was only referring to the ink,” she said, “you can leave the rest of your face on.” 

Before Micah could speak the front door flew open. He hoped it was Briggs. Hell, he hoped it was Briggs storming in to announce there were more outlaws on his land. The sound of the footfalls, long, wide, loping strides, confirmed it wasn’t Briggs. 

“Out,” said his father, almost spitting the word. He stood in the kitchen doorway like a devil, his hands stretched out as claws at his hips. 

“Mister Bell, I’m sorry, I was only borrowing Micah to help me with something, with some writing,” said Maggie, her smile forced. 

“Got work to do outdoors, Miss. I’ll be borrowing him back for the rest of the day.” 

“Mister Bell, he’s got a hurt arm. You seriously expect him to do any of that heavy lifting and hauling with his arm like that? It needs rest,” Maggie replied. Micah heard her voice grow weaker with every word. 

“It needs fresh air. Micah. Let’s go.” 

Maggie whipped her head around to face him, her hair flying across her face it was such a rapid turn. “Micah, you don’t have to go. My uncle-” 

“Your uncle, miss, ain’t his daddy. I am. Now get.” 

Micah shrank again, let his shoulders rise up to his ears, his posture stoop, his surrender entirely instinct. He slunk past his father and couldn’t look back at Maggie. 

His father marched him outside and waited until they were out of sight of the farmhouse to grab Micah and swing him about. Micah gave a feeble grunt. 

“What in the hell was that?” said his father with a sneer. 

“What? Was what?” 

“That. In there. With that girl. She your husband now? You her wife? Lettin’ her tell you what to do,” said his father. The crease between his eyebrows deepened. 

“I was talkin’ to her. I was bein’ what you wanted, I was bein’ careful. I was just talkin’.” 

His father snorted and folded his arms, cocked his head to one side. “You don’t talk to women, least not like that, anyhow.” 

“Then what am I s’posed to say?” 

His father grinned, his pale eyebrows rising and wrinkling his wide brow. “You says what you want ‘em to do for you, just like the animals. I keep on tellin’ ya and ya keep actin’ like they’s your equal. Don’t you know women only got one use? Includin’ that one in there.” 

“I seen what use you make of women.” 

“Only thing stoppin’ you doin’ the same is your fear, boy. They are designed for it. Look at ‘em. Look at ‘em and tell me they ain’t here for us.” 

Micah lowered his head and glared across at his father, who sighed and placed his hands on his hips, temporarily defeated. 

“You belong with me, son. Not with them. You ain’t no Briggs. You’re better than them. You’re a Bell. And them four letters is all the ones you’ll ever need.” His father patted his good shoulder and pointed behind him. “Get over there and up on that lower roof of that barn. Needs fixin’ after some bad rains.” 

“I can’t,” said Micah. 

“You will.” 

His father’s eyes, cold and wild, bored into him. Micah backed down and trailed to the barn, kicking out at the mud as he walked. 

\--- 

After a half hour Micah’s bad arm was forcing him to pause in his work every thirty seconds. It felt as if the flesh was coming away from itself as easy as parting soft orange slices. He was sweating in the cool afternoon and every now and again swayed, dizzy, delirious. 

The hammer slipped from his fingers and glanced off the stack of timber beside him. His knees gave and he sat back on his ankles, panting. Pulling aside the sleeve of his dark red shirt, he noticed a darker, redder patch in the center of his upper arm. He breathed out a noisy groan and tipped his head back. “Shit,” he said. 

“What foul language, Michael,” said a voice behind him. 

Micah rolled his eyes to the top of head and leaned back on his legs further. Couzens. He saw the young man’s hardy boots planted firm on the roof upside down. 

“What you want, Jeremy?” said Micah, sitting forward again and placing a hand on the deck, ready. 

The boards creaked as Couzens strolled closer. “Now, I in’t sure if you’re makin’ fun back or you forgot my name ‘coz you’re simple. Really hard to tell, but I’m thinkin’ it’s more the latter.” 

Micah went to one knee and pushed on it with his elbow to drag the other up. He couldn’t stand. 

Couzens hurried to his side with false concern. “Oh, you is lookin’ a whole lot paler than usual, Michael. Maybe you don’t got the disposition for this kinda work. Maybe doin’ the laundry is more your style, hmm?” 

Micah swiped out with a hand. Couzens cackled and dodged his head out of the way, backing up again. 

“Don’t think I’m lettin’ you get away with hittin’ me. We got unfinished business,” said Couzens, balling his hands into fists and lifting them. 

Micah got up after a short struggle. He stood close to the edge of the roof. “Couzens, you mean nothin’ to me. You’re less than nothin’. I don’t care about you. I don’t even think about you. Why you actin’ like we got some kinda rivalry?” Micah caught a glimpse of his father returning from his long break. The old man was meandering over to the barn. 

Couzens was thrown. His fists lowered for a moment, his eyes wide. Then he frowed, a wicked smile creeping onto his face. “It’s easy, Bell. I’m protectin’ what’s mine from you. You and your crazy daddy. You ain’t what you says you are. I heard what your daddy done out there to those outlaws. Nobody ‘round here shoots half as good as he did. Yous is more than just traveling men lookin’ for work.” 

Micah glanced over his shoulder and down to the ground again. His father was moving closer. He looked at the pile of timber at his side. Closing his eyes, Micah tried not to wonder what his father’s true reason was for working at the ranch. It was devious, that much he knew. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ of, Couzens. Me and him are just workin’ here for a spell. That’s all.” 

Couzens rushed him, took him by the throat and slammed him shoulders first onto the roof. All of the air jumped out of Micah’s lungs in a painful cough. His head hung over the edge. Couzens was pushing him over further by the neck. He opened his eyes and the sky fell away in a flash to become trees, tall and cracking and waving in a sudden wind. The rain was fast as bullets on his skin. Couzens was Stone, all holey teeth and laughter. He gasped and kicked and forgot about his arm, clawing and wriggling under Stone’s hold. 

Stone’s expression turned savage, more teeth, his eyes disappearing under his brows, his nostrils and nose wrinkling with the snarl. He was going to kill him. _He was going to kill him and he was going to let him._

Micah froze up, his hands uselessly trying to shield his chest. Then something twisted in his gut, right in the center of the madly thumping pulse. He blinked. Stone became just Couzens, and Couzens was just an idiot. The trees and the lashing rain and roar of the wind from the hills vanished. All that remained was the bright, gray sky and the fool Couzens, still pinning him. 

There was one way he could save himself from a pathetic strangling. Micah twisted out of Couzens’s grasp, already exhausted, and, after a quick glance over the edge of the roof to the ground below to clock the target, rammed his boot into the timbers to their right. 

The top plank teetered, then slid away, its coarse surface dragging the rest. They all see-sawed on the point of the edge for a moment, then started flipping downward one by one. Someone underneath them yelled as the wood shattered and splintered and thudded onto the mud with a crash. 

Couzens went to hang his torso from the roof and Micah heard him hiss through his teeth. Micah rolled over, shaking, then copied Couzens, crawling to the edge. 

“What did you do?” asked Couzens, looking over at him, his face wan.

His father lay sprawled under the timber, unmoving.

Micah stared back. He gave a smile. “I think you mean, what did _you_ do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anybody readin this??? yall dont have to if u dont want to!!! also sorry for the talk his dad says about women that's just character stuff!!


	11. Lies and Other Such Untruths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> broke: chrismas with family and eatin nice food and celebratin whatever
> 
> woke: writing a chapter of a story about a disgusting reptile man

Couzens gawped. Micah looked at him, at his small, brown eyes, at his patchy beard, at the crow’s feet just starting to develop where he’d squinted too hard in the sun for too long, and he saw weakness. 

“I said, what did you do, Couzens? You tried to kill my father,” said Micah, his eyebrows raised, still grinning. 

“What?” Couzens breathed, “no, no, that was you. You did that! I didn’t do nothin’!” 

“Then what’s he doin’ lyin’ down there ‘neath all those planks an’ timbers that you kicked offa this roof onto him?” 

Couzens scrabbled to his feet and hurried up the roof to cling to the wall. “I didn’t do that!” he said. 

Micah stood and resisted the urge to grab at his arm where it hurt. “You ain’t never liked me, Couzens. Not me, not my daddy. You been workin’ to get rid of us since day one. You harassed me in the barn. You attacked me. You harassed me again and I had to fight you off ‘cause you was gonna throttle me. I’m always havin’ to defend myself against you, Couzens. You nearly killed me right here and now on this roof, and you saw my daddy standin’ below and you saw an opportunity. You took it. You kicked all that timber down onto him and just look at the state I’m in...” 

“I didn’t do none of that to you! You got all that when you was out with Briggs.” 

Micah took a harsh breath in and put a hand to his neck where Couzens had taken hold moments before. He closed his eyes and increased his grip. He dug his blunt nails into the flesh and squeezed until it was a chore to breath, until his pulse thumped underneath his fingers. 

“What’re you doin’? What’re you doin’, you idiot?” he heard Couzens yell. 

It was only when his vision swam with speckles of white stars did Micah take his hand away, digging in his nails to raise welts for good measure. He feigned a gasp. “Couzens, why’d you do that? Why’d you attack me and leave all these marks?” 

“I didn’t do that,” said Couzens, spitting through his teeth. 

“Who they gonna believe?” 

Shouts from the farmhouse made them both whip their heads about and stare across the field. Stanfield and Peters were pointing and jogging over. 

Micah moved first. He limped to the ladder and struggled down it, missing rungs and slipping. His boots hit the dirt hard and he almost fell backward. 

“Mister Bell!” shouted Stanfield, slowing and already hauling timber from the pile to reach Micah’s father. Stanfield pushed Peters to grab the old man’s arms. “Jesus Christ, get him up from under there, Elijah!” 

Couzens was half scrambling-half falling down the ladder behind him. 

Micah cleared his throat and put a hand to his neck, making sure it was clear he was nursing it. “Mister Stanfield! Is my father all right?” he said through forced breaths. 

“Micah? What happened here?” said Stanfield, shifting the timbers aside. Peters had dragged Micah’s father to lie him on the ground away from the scene. 

“Jake, Jake Couzens, he just... I don’t rightly know the facts, sir, given that he was tryin’ to kill me, but he knocked all them planks down from the roof onto... is he gonna be all right? Is he dead?” Micah saw Couzens hurrying over in the corner of his eye, so started toward his father’s supine body. Peters caught him with his arm, and, as any good, worried son would, he fought against him. 

“Stay back, ain’t nothin’ you can do to help, now,” said Peters, who then took Micah’s collar and yanked it aside. “What’s all that on your neck, boy?” 

“I told you, it was Couzens,” said Micah in a whine. 

“It weren’t!” shouted Couzens, stalking over. 

Micah twisted out of Peters’s hold and cowered behind him. It was too easy. 

“That little son of a bitch is a lyin’ snake! Don’t listen to him, I didn’t do shit to him or his daddy! It was him, he did it!” 

Micah turned to Stanfield and hunched forward to make himself look smaller, his hands out, pleading. “Mister Stanfield, Jake’s had a grudge against me and my old man ever since we got here a couple days ago! You saw what he did to me in the barn, and just then he tried to kill me and he kicked all that onto my father to try an’ kill him, too.” 

“Mister Stanfield, sir, you known me four years. I wouldn’t do this,” said Couzens, his puff running low and his voice wobbling in its desperation. 

Micah watched Stanfield swing his head from side to side, looking over both of them. A muscle in his forehead made one of his eyebrows twitch and lower. Micah clenched his bad hand into a fist and trusted the sting of the handkerchief material sticking to the open cuts to force his expression into something a little more pained. 

Briggs trudged over before Stanfield could speak. “What in the hell is this?” he said, crouching to touch Micah’s father on the shoulder and nudge his head aside to check the damage. 

Micah went to speak but Peters pressed a hand into his chest and lowered his gaze to glare at him. Micah stepped back. 

Stanfield joined Briggs and the two men stood with their backs to the others, voices low. Occasionally one would glance over his shoulder, and each time he did, Micah made sure to look appropriately morose. 

Minutes later, Briggs approached. “Jake,” he said without looking at Couzens, “go home.” 

“Mister Briggs, you can’t do that-” 

“Be thankful it’s all I’m doin’. Won’t tell you again. Go.” 

Couzens stood taller. “Are you dismissin’ me, sir?” 

Micah saw Briggs grind his teeth behind his lips. 

“Are you dismissin’ me? Sir?” asked Couzens again. 

“No,” said Briggs, “but I’d appreciate if you didn’t return until after this week is done. Until things is smoothed over.” 

Couzens spluttered, hands rising and falling as he tried to decide on a gesture. He ended up throwing both up into the air and turning his back, walking away. Micah switched a smirk for a wince just in time. Briggs was looking at him. 

“Go inside. Me an’ the boys here will take your father to the doc in town,” he said. 

“I’ll come with you,” Micah said. 

“You’ll go inside. And you’ll pray for your father’s swift return to health,” Briggs replied, pointing a finger at him. 

Micah felt something wind tight in his gut and turn his insides upside down. “You-you’ll tell me? When he wakes up? The moment he does, I gotta see him. I gotta talk to him.” 

Briggs gave a terse nod. “Indoors with you. Get Jean or Margaret-May to have a look at your neck there. Looks bad.” 

Micah left once the cart arrived. He did as he was told and made sure to take the steps up to the farmhouse slowly, heavily. 

Maggie was there at the door already, her blue dress still finishing swirling at her ankles after she’d run to meet him. He remembered how he’d left her earlier without a word or a look. It seemed she remembered, as well. “Micah Bell,” she said, tapping her boot on the floorboards, “I have never known any boy workin’ on this ranch, either permanently or temporarily, cause as much of a trouble as you have. You’re a real pest for people, aren’t you?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, tilting his head and trying to process her tone. 

“It means go sit down at the table,” said Maggie, standing aside for him. 

He went past her and drew up the old stool he always found himself returning to. He sat with his back to her. 

“Will you tell me what happened? I saw the boys all runnin’ over to the barn. Is... anyone hurt?” she said. 

Micah forgot to take a shaky breath, forgot to sound sad in any way. His voice when he spoke was low and angry. “Your Jake Couzens tried to kill me an’ my daddy.” 

Maggie didn’t speak, but he heard her intake of breath. She hurried to face him and knelt down, her dress spreading beneath her like a puffy blue nest. “He isn’t my anything. And I’ve never known him to be like that. That’s not him. He’s a little mean at times but that’s all.” 

“Maggie, they’re takin’ my old man to the doctor in Cranberry right this minute. Couzens threw timbers on him from the roof. He was so full of hate and-and fear and stupidity that he just kicked out at it, sent it tumbling down. And he liked it. He liked doin’ that. He wanted to. He’d always wanted to. And all he’d needed was the perfect chance. That perfect window of opportunity...” 

Maggie pursed her lips together and shifted where she sat. “And you got hurt?” 

“What?” Micah blinked down at her, unsure what his expression looked like to her. There was something in the way her eyes seemed to stare at his chest that suggested she was afraid she wouldn’t like what she’d see if she glanced higher. 

“Couzens hurt you, too?” 

“Yeah. Couzens. He uh, he tried to strangle me like I was an animal.” 

Maggie sighed and let her hands fall into the folds of her dress at her lap. 

“Can you do anything about all this?” he asked, waving a hand at his neck. It was nowhere near as bad as it looked, but he had to pretend. “Can you fix it?” 

Maggie shrugged. “Can’t fix that.” 

“What? Why not?” 

“Because some things you have to wait out, Micah. You of all people should know that. Know about patience,” said Maggie, huffing and standing up to cross the room. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, turning around on the stool to face her. 

Maggie leaned on the kitchen counter, her shoulders sharp and high above her head. She looked up and addressed the window when she spoke. “Don’t act all clueless. Don’t think I haven’t seen how your father is with you. With everyone.” 

Micah got to his feet. “Don’t you say that. I love him.” 

Maggie turned and leaned the small of her back on the counter’s edge, her hands holding onto it behind her. “Yes, you do. You do, and I don’t think I’ve ever been sadder for a person.” 

Micah’s extended finger shook. He lowered his arm. 

Jean swept into the room a little out of breath. She spotted him and fluttered her hands. “Your father’s all right, Master Bell. Mister Peters came on back from town ahead of the rest to tell me. Just a bump on the head and some bruising on his side. With some rest he should recover quick. They say he’s strong. I for one am relieved,” she said, holding a hand to her chest, her small mouth smiling with a genuine joy Micah never seen before. 

He looked at her, replayed her happy voice in his head, took in her relaxed posture, the warm colors she wore, the pattern on her dress. He focused on Jean Briggs completely to avoid thinking about anything else. He heard himself breathing fast through his open mouth. 

“That’s good news,” said Maggie for him, stepping forward. 

Jean smiled at her niece. There was still a tinge of concern in her face, in the way the groove of her nose hitched up, in the deeper lines above the bridge of her nose. She looked at him and her smile became gentle. “I’m so sorry, this was a terrible accident, truly. Say, why don’t you stay here tonight? Properly, this time. Have dinner with us. We’ll look after you while your father is laid up in town and recuperating.” 

Micah continued to stare. He frowned and narrowed his eyes. His lip pulled up at one side. His eye sockets felt hot and tight. His throat closed over. 

Maggie slid in front of him. “Auntie Jeanie, he accepts. He’s just a little shook up from today, that’s all,” she said, a hand going behind her to find his arm. She squeezed it and he jumped. 

“I’ll get started on supper,” said Jean with a wider smile. “Margaret-May, would you help me? Master Bell, please make yourself at home.” 

Maggie gave him a quick look over her shoulder. She mouthed ‘it’s okay,’ and followed her aunt to the pantry. 

Micah sat back down on the stool, a hand fussing with his injured arm. The blood on his shirt had dried. He supposed they’d not spotted it on the dark red of the material. 

His father was going to recover. And fast. Micah groaned through a noisy breath. It was punishment. Punishment for his hasty, last minute decision to stop Couzens from choking the life out of him. It was all there had been left to do. If it had been Briggs or one of his boys, they would have suffered the same. But would Couzens have followed through? Would he have throttled him? Shoved him from the roof? Or was it just the posturing of a stupid young man, driven by his dangerous obsession with dominance? 

Micah stood up and left the house to sit outside on the porch. He slid down into the porch swing and kicked off with a boot. It creaked as it moved. The ranch beyond the farmhouse steps moved on. A quiet breeze rattled the tops of the trees and sent dust and small stones skittering across the track. The cold rolled in on it, the winter sun hanging like a red orb over the hills. 

The sky was just turning dark when Micah heard someone sit in the seat next to him and rattle the chains holding it up. The swing bounced, then settled. 

“You shouldn’t be out here. It’s cold,” said Maggie. 

Micah pressed a fist to his chin and refused to look at her. 

“And you shouldn’t do that, either,” she said. 

“Do what?” 

“That. What you’re doing now.” 

“What am I doing?” He sighed, but still wouldn’t look at her. 

“Hiding.” 

Micah took his hand away from his face and stared at Maggie. In the low light, as navy sky turned to black, Maggie looked remarkable. What remark would be best to use at that moment, he didn’t know. Only that she looked remarkable and it would, sadly, go unmarked. 

“You’re always hiding yourself, Micah Bell,” she said, sitting back, “and I think I know why.” 

Micah widened his eyes, ignored the pulse in his chest batting like wings. “You don’t know a single thing,” he said, breathing a laugh. 

“I know you’re scared of your father.” 

He went still. A creature stuck behind the bars of his ribcage was roaring and thrashing. His fingers quivered. He set his jaw and looked at her. “That’s not funny,” he said through his teeth. 

“I never said it was, but that’s what it is, isn’t it? Why you went so pale hearing Auntie Jeanie say he was going to be all right. You weren’t hoping for that, were you?” 

“I was. I was. I hope he’s fit and able tomorrow morning and rides on down that track there like nothin’ ever happened. I hope that for him. Because I love him. Don’t talk about my father like that.” 

Maggie shuffled in closer. Micah leaned back, placed a shaking hand on the armrest. “You don’t have to lie, Micah,” she said. 

“I never lie. I _never_ lie,” he said, eyes wide and flashing in the dark. 

“I’m only saying it’s okay,” Maggie said, her voice growing short and higher in pitch. 

“I’m sayin’ it’s not!" He had only half-intended to raise his tone. It became a shout. 

Maggie drew her head back. Micah saw her clasp her hands into fists. The tightness in his chest unfurled like an unraveling rope. He craned his head back and breathed. “Maggie, I-” 

“Margaret-May.” 

“What?” 

“My name’s Margaret-May, Micah Bell. You’d do well to remember that.” Maggie got to her feet, brushed down her dress and fixed her hair with a wobbly hand. “Dinner’s in an hour. Please attend if you wish.” She turned on her heel and went inside. The door closed. 

Micah sat for a while, his eyes staring at one spot on the porch’s wooden banister, a knot in the wood. He watched it until it started swirling and tricked his eyes. He blinked and stood, walked to the door, wrapped his good hand around the handle. And let it go again. He turned around to face the ranch’s fields again, the cold wind whipping his hair. Micah gave the farmhouse door a last, longing look before he set out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOW YALL DOIN!! thanks to the uhhh 3 ppl who read this?!!


	12. I Know You

The woods opposite the Briggs ranch were quiet. It was if he’d become deaf. There was nothing but the whine of the wind and the swish of grass and leaves underfoot as he walked. The sky was clear, a waxing moon hovered above the treetops and shone a sharp, cold light down through the branches. 

_Where are you going? _said a voice at the back of his neck. He trudged on, the sides of his boots catching against rocks or skidding on patches of slippery leaf litter. Maybe he could walk north all the way to Lake Erie, travel to Michigan. Maybe he could cross to Canada.__

__His arm hurt. The steady throb from before had been replaced with an agonizing pang every other second. His side still smarted where Couzens had kicked him that first morning in the stables. The icy wind made the cuts on his face sting. He kept moving._ _

__Something rustled the foliage flanking him. He ignored it. Animal. He’d camped in forests enough to know very little beyond nocturnal vermin made noises at night. He was one of them this time._ _

__Micah stopped and turned to look through the trees behind him. The tiny glow of the farmhouse flickered small as a candle’s light far away. A cold breeze snapped at his skin. He hadn’t even brought Briggs’s heavy jacket to keep the weather back. Breathing was starting to hurt. He could see his lungs’ feeble efforts in the shaky wisps rising in front of him._ _

___Go back if you’re so weak. Go back. Be a fool._ The voice at the base of his skull. Micah breathed out through his teeth and started forward the way he came, pushing scraggly branches aside, using the moonlight to spot black trees looming. _ _

__

__

__Soon the farmhouse’s light was ahead. Micah favored his bad arm and picked up the pace. As he reached the light, Micah slowed, frowned, let his mouth hang open. It wasn’t the farmhouse._ _

__The toe of his boot caught on a root and he tripped forward, fighting to catch his balance before he hit the dirt shoulder first. He coughed and shook his hair of twigs and dirt. One more ache to add to the collection. Unsteadily he got to his elbows, forced himself up onto his knees._ _

__Micah raised a hand to shield his face and let his eyes adjust to the change in light. He saw nothing but a campfire. No tent, no supplies, no horse. The fire spat up embers. Standing and dusting down his pants, Micah drew closer to the fire, shuffling his feet. The flames were strong, the wood barely black. It had just been set. He bent low and reached a hand down to warm his fingers._ _

__“Hello, Micah. Micah Bell.”_ _

__Micah drew his hand back like a shot and spun on his heel._ _

__A figure stepped into the clearing. The flickering light of the fire melted up him as he moved like water slowly soaking paper. He was dressed unusually for a man camping the night in the trees. He wore his Sunday best, waistcoat and all, the top button of his long, black jacket done. The fire showed the lines on his face, middle-aged at the oldest. His mustache was thick, dark and coiled in the most gentlemanly way possible, and the top hat shading his eyes was smartly brushed._ _

__Micah backed away, head lowered. A shiver sharp as a claw streaked down his back. “You know my name,” he said._ _

__“I do. I know many people’s names. Yours is someone else’s. A name passed down. A man likes to name things after himself, I find. Gives him life beyond his own.” said the strange man._ _

__Micah took a few more steps toward the trees. The man started strolling around the fire. Micah circled the opposite way, kept the flames between them._ _

__“You mean my father? You a lawman?” said Micah._ _

__“I suppose you could say I am a man of laws, yes.”_ _

__Micah hissed in breath through his teeth and scowled. “Who are you? What you doin’ out here?”_ _

__The man crouched and picked up a stick which had rolled from the fire. He used it to stoke the flames and turn the kindling. When the fire really started to crackle, the man stopped to rest his arm on his knee and looked up. Fire lit up his pale eyes. “Oh, I know who I am and I know what I’m doing out here,” he said._ _

__“That’s not an answer, old man,” Micah said._ _

__“It is for me. Unless you’d prefer to answer it for yourself.”_ _

__“I’m not answering my own question.”_ _

__The man stood up with a sigh and dropped the stick onto the campfire. “You should. It might help.”_ _

__“Guessing doesn’t help nobody.”_ _

__“A guess and an answer are different things.”_ _

__“Sure. But when you don’t know an answer, a guess is as good as answerin’ wrong. And that ain’t no answer.”_ _

__“Oh, you know more answers than you’d like to admit, Micah. You have more answers than questions.”_ _

__Micah frowned harder. “I don’t have time for this, you old drunk,” he said, putting up his hands and turning his back on the fire and the man._ _

__“The answer is a choice,” said the man in a louder voice._ _

__Micah stopped. He squeezed his hands into fists, blanked the pain flashing through his bandaged palm, then rounded on the man again. “What?” he said._ _

__“The answer to your question. What am I doing out here? I am here to talk to you about a choice.”_ _

__“Me? Wait, I came out here for a walk, to get away for a while. How could you have possibly known I would be in this exact spot at this precise moment?”_ _

__“Again, a choice. I simply chose to be here in this exact spot at this precise moment.”_ _

__Micah leaned back on a leg and shook his head. “I also asked who you were,” he said, eyes narrowed._ _

__“I am a man here to talk to you about a choice.”_ _

__Micah threw up his hands, turned on the spot, laughed, then glowered at the man. “I think you’re more about riddles than you are about choices.” He approached the fire again and stood a foot from it, his arms out. “What’s this choice you wanna give me?”_ _

__“Oh, I’m merely telling you about the choice, not giving it.”_ _

__Micah clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. “I’m getting' tired of askin’ what you mean,” he said._ _

__The man smiled, or at least, the shadows cast by the fire made it seem like he smiled. He moved in closer, the swing of his legs casual, almost comfortable. “Sometime in the future, sometime soon, your father, Micah Bell, is going to ask you to do something. Something involving old Roscoe and Jean Briggs. Those wonderful, kind folks. Those folks who took you in, gave you a job, food, clothing, a gift, and, dare I say, their love. And from that something will stem choices.”_ _

__“How do you know... I don’t know what you mean by any of that.”_ _

__“I mean,” said the man, leaning in, “from one of these choices comes a chance. And it will be your last one.”_ _

__Micah’s voice was no louder than a whisper when he spoke. “What?”_ _

__The man bent closer. Micah could see the spidery wrinkles around his eyes. “The only thing I can assure you of is that you will certainly make a choice.”_ _

__Micah tilted his head away and stared into the fire. “How do you know I’ll make a choice at all?”_ _

__The man drew back and smiled again. “Because I know you.” He turned about and started to leave the clearing, his hands clasped together behind him._ _

__Micah ran a hand over his mouth and then hurried forward a few paces. The fire flared. “Wait!” he said, stopping. “How will I know if the choice I make is the right one?”_ _

__The man paused. His shoulders lowered and he tapped his fingers on the opposite hand where it rested at the small of his back. “I’ll be seeing you again, Micah Bell,” he said, stepping into the darkness._ _

__Micah looked on with what he knew was an indescribable expression before he regained control of his senses. “No, hey! No, you don’t! Don’t you walk away from me!” he called, striding across the clearing to follow. The second he reached the line of trees the fire behind him disappeared as quickly as if it had been blown out. He halted and turned around with a noisy yelp. The world was black again. The fire, which had been burning high and strong and hot, was gone. He blindly hurried back to the clearing and slid to his knees to find the remains of the campfire. No curl of smoke, no smell of burnt wood, no patches of black ash and dead grass. The ground was cold and wet when he touched it. Micah realized he was panting and his arms trembled in time with the pulse running through them. He got to his feet and leapt through the trees after the man only to find himself not in the depths of the wood but at the very edge of it._ _

__Ahead was the ranch, the fields, the barn, the stables. The farmhouse. Micah clutched at his chest and caught his breath. He was sure he’d walked further than five paces into the trees. He fixed his collar, wiped his muddy hands down on his shirt and headed down to the farmhouse. At the door he took a moment to smooth down his hair and wipe the sweat from his face with a sleeve. He then paced up and down on the boards. “Hey, uh, Maggie—oh, I’m sorry, Margaret-May, don’t worry or nothin’ but I think I just got into conversation with a devil in the forest. Maggie! Maggie-May, I just went for a walk and came across a man who either runs a traveling circus or escaped from one, how’s your evenin’ goin? Maggie? Please don’t call me crazy but God himself visited to tell me not a single helpful thing about anything!” His wheezy laugh turned into a whine and he ran a hand around the back of his neck where perspiration was making his hair damp._ _

__Finally. Before he wore the grain of the wood on the porch smooth with his toing and froing, Micah went for the door handle. It twisted by itself as his fingers hovered over it. Maggie appeared in the doorway._ _

__“Magg--Margaret-May,” he said in a breath._ _

__“Micah Bell, you’re causing an awful fuss out here,” she said, then, lowering her voice, “are you soaked?”_ _

__“What? No! No, I’m not, I ain’t touched no alcohol, I swear.”_ _

__“I said it was an hour till dinner, if you’re getting impatient, please do it more quietly and stop banging around out here chattering to yourself.”_ _

__“What did you say?”_ _

__“Now, don’t you start again getting snappy at me,” she said, starting to close the door._ _

__Micah hit the flat of his hand on the inside of the door to stop Maggie shutting it. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that, I mean what did you say about dinner? An hour?”_ _

__Maggie rolled her eyes. “Sure. An hour. Or fifty five minutes if you wanna be more precise.”_ _

__“Maggie, I been out for at least three quarters of that. I been out into the woods. I walked miles.”_ _

__“You aren’t making a lick of sense right now. I think you ought to stop before someone hears,” she said, her voice low again. She started closing the door again. Micah kept it open with what little strength was left in his good arm._ _

__“I need to talk to you,” he said._ _

__“We are talking.”_ _

__“No, I need to talk to you more private-like.”_ _

__Maggie’s worried expression dropped. “Micah, we did talk in private. Ten minutes ago. I got the impression you didn’t want to discuss anything.”_ _

__“I know, I know and you weren’t supposed to take my meaning like that. Listen, I have something to tell you, all right?”_ _

__“Is it ‘sorry?’”_ _

__Micah blinked. His hand slid down the door. “What? Sorry for what?”_ _

__Maggie looked disappointed. Her mouth turned down and her lower eyelids hitched up. Her forehead wrinkled for a moment. “As I said before, Micah Bell. Dinner’s in about an hour.”_ _

__Micah took his hand back before the door closed on it. The latch clicked. Maggie’s footfalls petered away behind it. He shoved his hands in his pockets, winced when he remembered one of his hands was very much injured still, then went to stand on the top step of the porch. Staring out at the ranch, Micah scanned for a flicker of light in the trees, a gleam, a flash, a blink. Anything. The trees remained still and dark. The wind remained biting. The porch swing creaked. Micah folded his arms and leaned against the wooden rail. He had a horrible feeling explaining his encounter with the strange man to Maggie was going to be easier than saying sorry to her._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strange Man cameo!!!!!!!!!


	13. When Amos Left

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO!!! tw for this one folks i guess. tw for uhh child abuse? and general people abuse? sorry! tw for micah abuse not needed because whomst cares its micah we hate him

Micah picked at the handkerchief around his hand. The material was turning tough as card where blood had soaked into it and dried. He pulled aside a fold to inspect the cuts on his palm and was relieved to find there weren’t half as many as the amount of blood suggested. He wrapped his hand back up and hopped his shoulders up and down a few times, breathed out, tried to brush his hair back from his eyes. 

Maggie’s door was the most intimidating oak rectangle he’d ever faced. He swore he saw grinning faces in the grain, rolling eyes in the knots. Micah cleared his throat and tapped his knuckles on it with the same speed he would if it was on fire. “Maggie?” he said. 

There was no reply. 

“Margaret-May, I still need to talk to you. Please.” 

The door clicked and flew open. The breeze from it made his hair flop back down over his forehead. He blinked. 

“You are being exceedingly inconsiderate at the moment, Micah Bell. You’re acting like the Devil’s got you,” said Maggie. Her ringlets had been brushed out. 

“I haven’t done anything wrong. Look, can we talk inside?” 

Maggie’s eyes widened. “We cannot. I have known you three days and I’d not let you inside even if I’d known you three months. You shouldn’t be standing here at my door, and the only reason you’re standing in this house is because your daddy got hurt and Uncle Roscoe and Auntie Jeanie feel bad for you.” 

Micah froze. He moved nothing but his eyes, searched Maggie’s face. 

Maggie glanced away and folded her arms tight across her chest. “I mean that they feel bad he got injured and you both only been at the job a few days.” 

There was a hoarse rumble under Micah’s voice. “Do... do you feel the same?” 

She looked at him and sighed. “I told you what I feel about you.” 

“And what’s that?” 

Maggie uncrossed her arms. “That I was sad for you.” 

“What kinda sad would that be?” he asked, the rumble in his throat becoming a growl. “You said you only known me three days. So what kinda sad can you feel for a stranger? The kinda sad you feel when you look at a limping dog? O-or an old drunk slumped in the streets wailing? Or kids thievin’ coz they don’t have nothin’ else in their lives?” 

Maggie cleared her throat and hid her hands behind her back. She lowered her head. Her long hair slid over her shoulders. “Maybe it is that kind of sad, Micah Bell.” 

Micah leaned back on one leg and swung the other behind him, backing away. He breathed out and looked down the hall, then hooked his thumbs around his suspenders at his chest. He could feel the drum of his heart through them. He forced himself to look at Maggie, forced himself to smirk. “I’ll see you at dinner, Miss Margaret-May,” he said, stooping into a sardonic bow and slowly making his way down the corridor. 

As soon as Maggie’s door shut, he stopped, stood in the hall with his head down. He let his hands go to his sides and for a second his shoulders hunched up to his ears and a hand nearly flew to his face. Micah caught it, stopped it, hissed in air through his teeth. Whatever it had been, creeping up from his stomach into his neck, he stopped that son of a bitch. 

\--- 

“Master Bell?” Jean was bearing down on him with bowls and cutlery. “Would you kindly set the table?” She smiled, waiting for him to hold out his hands, and when he didn’t offer them, shook the tableware at him with a humored clattering. 

“Yes, mam,” he said, almost having to catch the bowls when Jean let go of them. He turned around and surveyed the table, then realized Maggie’s door was only the second most intimidating oak rectangle he’d ever come across. 

“Jeanie, really,” said Briggs, appearing and scooping the bowls and cutlery from Micah with one hand, “boy’s got a bad paw. I’ll do it, son.” Briggs grinned. Micah saw two sets of happily-browning teeth beneath his mustache. 

He stood away and let Briggs lay the table. The kitchen was warm. The heat hung in the air like a heavy fog, so thick it was almost as though it could be pushed aside like bedsheets hung out to dry. Jean heaved the pot from the old stove. The stew sloshed, the scent of it escaped. Briggs dropped spoons and laughed. Jean tutted at him. Micah watched with a hand on his arm where it still hurt and he felt the unusual tug of a muscle at the corner of his mouth. Before he could catch it, it was a smile. There was no creeping feeling this time. 

“Mind yourself, young man,” said Jean as she eased past him on her tiptoes, the stew pot so heavy her elbows trembled. She busied herself ladling. 

Maggie entered and Micah tried not to look at her, choosing to take a seat at her opposite. As Jean continued dishing up, Micah turned to Briggs. “Sir? Have you ever come across a man in the woods?” 

Briggs snorted a laugh. “Met many a man in the woods,” he said. 

“No, I mean a specific man. A smartly dressed man, all in black with a top hat?” 

“Sounds like Mister Summers,” Briggs said. 

“Mister Summers?” 

“Funeral director from Cranberry.” 

“Does this Mister Summers have a mustache? All curled like a fine gentleman?” 

“He does not. Where did you say you saw this man? The woods?” 

Micah looked at Briggs’s eyes, at the way they were narrowed, at the genuine interest in his lean forward over the table. Micah shrugged and pulled at his collar. “I, uh, I meant, on the road by the woods. The trail down to Cranberry. I just... I thought he was a curious kinda person to see around here, that’s all.” 

“Maybe it was Mister Summers in fancy dress,” said Jean with a smile. Briggs rolled his eyes at her and sat back again. 

The stew was still bubbling. Micah dunked his spoon into the bowl and raised it halfway to his mouth before he glanced up and saw the others paused in tableau, staring. The spoon hovered in front of his chin. A chunk of beef slid from it and landed in the stew. A single splash spotted his shirt. 

“We’d, uh, we’d like to say grace before we eat, Master Bell, if that’s all right with you,” Briggs said. 

Micah dropped the spoon into the bowl and more stew leaped out. “Y-yes, that’s... grace. Sure.” 

As grace was said, with heads bowed and Briggs’s voice low as murmur, Micah sat up straight and kept his eyes aside. It was strange. There were no thanks paid to Jean Briggs for cooking the food. No thanks to Roscoe or a man of the ranch for slaughtering it. No thanks to the cow the meat had been sawn from. An invisible man with no name was thanked. A man none of them could see or feel. A man he’d never heard. 

“Do you have any family beyond your daddy, Micah?” asked Jean after a while. 

_Amos!_

“What?” asked Micah through a mouthful, stew running down his chin. 

“Family. You know. Mother, sisters, brothers?” 

_Amos, hurry up!_

Micah ran the back of his sleeve over his mouth and swallowed. “A brother. He’s gone away from here. With his mother.” 

Jean tilted her head and scooped stew onto her spoon. “You mean your mother?” 

_Amos, please! Please be quick!_

His eyes went to stare at the beef swimming in his bowl. “Yes, mam. I mean our mother.” 

_He found them in the bedroom. Patience was stuffing underclothes into a case. Her brown hair flew around her face as she rushed from bed to dresser and back. Amos, fifteen, dark-eyed and dark-haired, was hovering nearby, torn between helping and keeping out of the way. He was holding a smaller case in front of his knees. Patience crouched in front of him with her back to Micah in the doorway. She took hold of Amos’s shoulders and they shook with her trembling. “Amos? We’re going away. We’re going far away and we’re going now, so I need you to be quiet as a mouse, can you do that?”_

_Amos’s eyes went from Patience’s face to over her shoulder. Micah shifted his feet to make a noise._

_Patience stood and turned about, then hid Amos behind her with her dress. “Micah,” she breathed, trying to smile._

_“What are you doin’, Patience?” Micah asked. He said it how he knew his father would say it. If he spoke like him, he’d get an answer right away._

_“I’m only going out, Micah. Only going out,” she said._

_“You’re going out.”_

_“Yes, for the afternoon. With Amos.”_

_“No, you’re not. Don’t tell lies.”_

_Patience’s smile widened, then dropped. She approached him with a hand held out. Micah leaned away, but she was too quick to pick up one of his and held it tight. Her palms and fingers were hot. “Micah, we’re going. We’re going because I ain’t letting that man lay no more fingers on us. I tolerated what I tolerated, and for that I suppose I deserve to spend all my remaining years punished, but not no more.”_

_Micah tried to pull his hand away. He wasn’t sure what expression he wore, wasn’t sure which would fit best. Patience had always been there. The one who’d stayed the longest. Now that he looked at her, he saw the ghosts of bruises._

_“Micah, Micah,” she said in a hushed voice, reaching her other hand up and brushing a thumb across his cheekbone. She was on the verge of tears. Her face had turned red in anticipation of it. “I know I ain’t your momma. But I can be. I can be. Come along with us. You don’t wanna stay here, do you? You don’t wanna keep doing this, do you?”_

_Micah lowered his eyes. He could feel her squeezing his fingers too hard. He looked across the bedroom to Amos. “You only got two cases,” he said, still staring at his brother._

_Patience’s gentle features gave way to a frown. “What do you mean?”_

_“You got... you got two cases. One for you and one for Amos. You was gonna leave without me.”_

_Her voice turned breathy. “No, no, I was hurrying. I was just hurrying. We can find you one. Micah, please, we have to be fast. Your father will be home soon.”_

_Micah felt something drop like a weight in his chest, sink right through his stomach, make him feel quite ill. He slid his hand away from Patience and tilted his head back to peer down his nose at her. His skin felt heated to boiling. “You’re right. You ain’t my momma. And you don’t wanna be.”_

_Patience breathed in a gasp._

_“You always liked this,” said Amos, stepping forward._

_Micah looked up at him, let a scowl wrinkle his face._

_“This life. You always liked the movin’ around, the runnin’, the scores, the thievin’ and the fightin’. You like it, Micah. I don’t... I don’t want you to come with us.”_

_Micah moved past Patience, brushed away her pawing at his shirt, and stood in front of his brother. His half-brother. He looked at him, at his dark eyes, his short brown hair, the slope of his nose, the set of his eyes. Amos increased his grip on the case’s handle in front of him._

_“Say that again,” said Micah._

_Amos pulled his mouth to one side and glanced away._

_“I said say that again. Say you don’t want me to go with you.”_

_Amos looked at him. His voice was steady, confident. “I don’t want you to go with us.”_

_Micah let a breath rattle through his teeth. His pulse bucked in his wrists. “Why not?” he said._

_“Because it would be like we never left.”_

_Micah backed up. He knocked the back of his knee on a case and stumbled. He moved past Patience and reached the hall. At that moment the door latch squeaked._

_Patience snapped her head up and her eyes were wide as plates. She looked at Micah, but before she could even give her head a single shake to stop him, he called out._

_“In here!”_

_He moved backward again until his shoulders touched the corridor wall. Amos tried to hide his case. Patience put out a hand to stop him. Not once did her eyes leave Micah’s until they forced him to drop his gaze to the floorboards._

_“Boy. What is it?” His father slung his rifle onto the floor and balanced it on the door frame, shrugging off his coat. The old man stood and waited for a reply. Micah couldn’t give it. He stayed as he was, only able to scrape the knuckles of his fingers on the wall behind him until he skinned them._

_His father stalked past him and swept into the room, took up the entirely of the doorway. Micah watched his shoulders rise and fall as he breathed._

_“What’s this?” his father said, “what are you doin’, Patience?”_

_Micah turned his head away._

_“We was... I was gonna prepare dinner. And we... we-”_

_Micah looked up for a second. He saw his father raise a hand. There was a crack when he whipped it down again._

_“Was you runnin’ away from me? Huh? Was you gonna run, you miserable little bitch?”_

_Patience was breathing and sobbing. Her voice sounded muffled, spoken through a hand. “No, no, I wasn’t, we wouldn’t never-”_

_The air was hot, noisy with breathing, with voices. Micah pressed the side of his face to the wall, let the wood soak up an escaped tear. He didn’t open his eyes when he heard his father drag Patience screeching from the bedroom. Only when Amos clipped him on the arm with a swing from his case did he open his eyes._

_His father hauled Patience to the main room and threw her bodily against the kitchen table leg. She yelped when the back of her skull struck it with a dull thud. She whimpered and curled up, both hands shaking over her head._

_Amos was fast. He gave their old man enough of a shove to make him stumble and interrupt his shouting. The old man was, sadly, just as quick. He took Amos by the collar, swung him about, slung him onto the floor and leaned right down over him, snorting like a bull._

_Micah crept flat along the wall and when he ran out of wall, stood as far from the others as he could. His heart roared in his ears. He saw his father’s bent back and the sharp points of his elbows lift after every punch he landed on Amos. Amos’s boots feebly kicked underneath the old man, then the kicks became twitches._

_“Pa, you-” Micah started, raising a hand, taking a step._

_His father stopped. The old man’s shoulders heaved up and down. Blood dripped from his fist._

_“Don’t... don’t you think that’s enough? They learnt their lesson, didn’t they?”_

_His father swung his head to look at him. “Was you gonna go with them?” he asked._

_“What?” A nervy smile appeared before Micah could stop it._

_“Was you gonna leave, too? Was you gonna turn tail like these fucking ungrateful cowards? After all I did for ‘em!”_

_Micah’s breath hitched in his throat. He coughed through it, flailed a hand behind to find a wall. He looked down at Patience, who was still dazed and trying to crawl. Amos was barely moving. “No, no I was never gonna go nowhere. I swear. Only them was gonna leave.”_

_His father breathed and pushed back the hair which had fallen in his eyes. “Good. Good. You was always the good one. Stay there. Stay there, boy. The lesson ain’t learned. Not yet.” He stood up. Amos, weak, rolled over and lay panting like a shot animal. His father slipped his belt off and curled it around a hand, idling, thinking. He then picked up Amos’s head by his hair, resisted the feeble slapping he got for it, then hooked the belt around Amos’s neck, buckled it up._

_Micah strode forward a couple of steps, then remembered his orders. Stay there. Stay there, boy. He breathed through his teeth._

_His father tugged the belt around Amos’s throat and slid the hook through the tightest notch he could. Amos started to kick again. Patience called out and tried to grab the old man by the boot, but she received a swift kick in the shoulder for her trouble._

_“If you don’t wanna be here,” hissed his father to Amos, “then don’t be here.” The leather creaked._

_Micah stepped back and forth on the spot. He felt sweat break out across his hairline. Stay there. Stay there, boy._

_Stay there, boy._

_Stay._

_He ran. He ran past his father, past his brother with eyes rolling and face scarlet with blood, and went for the rifle propped up by the door. Breathing hard, he cycled the lever and the rounds leapt out. He de-cocked it and then spun it around in his hands, grasping it by the barrel. He took a swing at his father’s head with the grip._

_It connected under his father’s jaw and sent the old man flying backward._

_Micah dropped the rifle and fell to his knees in front of Amos. He unbuckled the belt and slung it aside, then shook his brother to keep him awake. Amos coughed, wheezed, almost brayed like a mule as he took in the air again. Patience pulled herself along and over to him, then flashed a look at Micah._

_His father groaned beside them._

_Micah lifted Amos by his shirt and pulled them both up to standing. Amos clutched his neck with both hands and swayed. Patience was as wobbly as her son but Micah pushed them together and opened the door. Patience made it out. Amos fell. Micah grasped him by the suspenders and leaned over him on the threshold._

_“Amos?” he said._

_Amos stared at him, blinked, breathed. He could hear him. Micah forced him up and pushed him down the rickety stairs of the cabin off the road they’d raided and taken for themselves some weeks ago. “Fuck off!” he yelled, holding onto the doorframe. “Fuck off, fuck off! I never wanna fuckin’ see either of you again, d’ya hear?” He stared, wild-eyed and huffing, then reached for the rifle and the rounds he’d ejected from it. He threw it and the rounds outside into the dirt. “Fuck off!”_

_Amos had rolled down the steps and landed in the muck. He lifted himself up onto his shaking elbows, then looked up at Micah._

_Micah calmed his breathing, let his angry expression rest, felt his shoulders drop and his hand slide down the door._

_Patience took Amos by the arm and picked him up, collecting the rifle and a few of the rounds as she passed them. She stopped before she reached the path and turned to look back._

_Micah couldn’t bear to meet her eyes, but he made himself. She was pale, her hair awry, with nothing but a limp and injured son in one hand and an old rifle in the other. “I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper._

_Micah let out a shuddering breath. He heard his father scraping his boots on the floorboards behind him. He hunched his shoulders against it. “Go,” he said to her, then slammed the door shut on them._

_He kept himself facing the door, concentrated on the color, the patterns, the smell of it. His father rumbled at his ear._

_“That was my good rifle, boy.”_

_“I-I know.”_

_“Do you have any idea what you have done?”_

_Micah spun on the spot in an attempt to round on his father, but he ended up shrinking back against the door when he saw how close the old man was, how much blood was rolling from his mouth. “I let some fools go. That’s what I did. T-they weren’t loyal no more. Please, I-”_

_“Fetch that belt of mine.”_

_Micah held out his hands to plead. A surge of freezing cold washed down his back and made his shirt cling to his skin. “Pa, father, please, I couldn’t--it wasn’t right, what you done...”_

_His father leaned forward. Micah could smell the blood on his breath. “Everythin’ I do is right. Get that belt.”_

_Micah shuffled past him and stooped to pick up the belt. The buckle glinted and clanged. He offered it to his father, watched it go from quivering in his own hand to steady as stone in his father’s._

_“The old ways is the best ways. Learned that from my daddy. Turn around.”_

_Micah squeezed his eyes shut and turned._

_The first bite caught him across a shoulder blade._

“You must miss him,” said Jean. 

Micah dropped his spoon on the table. It bounced and slid off the edge. He hurried to get it and chased it across the stone floor until he managed to grab it again. He sat back up and placed it on the table with delicate precision, as if it was made of shell. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he replied, catching Maggie’s smirk. 

“Well, maybe you’ll see him again, you’re only young,” said Jean, her voice a little more unsure. 

“Yeah.” 

Maggie stood up. “Do you want a new spoon?” 

Micah closed his open mouth when he realized he’d been addressed. “I’m sorry?” 

“I was wondering if you wanted a fresh one. Sometimes that old dog George sleeps there.” 

“Oh! Oh, no, uh, I’ll get it, it’s fine.” 

“Let me,” said Maggie, already passing him. Micah pulled out his chair at the same time and hit her in the hip. She yelped and hopped away. Micah winced and stood up. 

“Are you-” 

“I’m fine! Think a little nudge from a chair put out by some bony boy is going to cause serious damage?” Maggie laughed. Micah tried to copy but it became a whine. He joined her over by the cupboards and wasn’t sure why. Maggie wasn’t sure either, as she seemed very wary of him as she rattled through the drawers for a spoon. She tapped one against his chest when she was finished hunting and swept back to the table. He trailed after her. 

The food was good. As soon as the conversation turned to the ranch or the cattle he ate at ease, content to listen until he was asked a question. One in particular made him lower his spoon into his third bowl. 

“Would you like to see your father in town tomorrow?” asked Briggs. 

Micah glanced aside and then busied himself with the last dregs of stew. “Do you think he’d be well enough to see me?” 

“I think so. It was only a bump. I think he managed to avoid the worst of it. He’s a lucky man. Good with a gun, too. You boys have any lawmen in your history?” 

Micah blinked. “You could say that.” 

“I am sorry,” said Briggs, leaning back and slinging his spoon down into his empty bowl, “about that Couzens boy botherin’ you and seeminly hurtin’ your daddy like that. I’ll be speakin’ to him. Ain’t known him to be so aggressive.” 

Micah moved his arm aside to let Jean pick up his bowl. “That’s okay, Mister Briggs. Can’t help how he is. Just glad nobody got more hurt.” 

Briggs nodded. “Go see your old man in the morning. I think he’d like that. Then come on back and maybe you’ll get to do some actual work around here.” 

Micah straightened in his seat. “Sir, I.. I’m sorry it don’t seem I’m doin’ much.” 

Briggs smiled. “Boy, you saved me and my boys’ lives the other day. We owe you them. Don’t fret.” 

He couldn’t return the smile fully, but appreciated receiving it. Briggs was a warm man, the kind who laughed plenty and loved plenty. Micah was sure he’d never seen a man like that before so real in his happiness. 

The old muddy dog George bustled in and sat in the space where Maggie had mentioned he liked to. The dog pressed his shoulder against Micah’s leg, so Micah dropped a hand to scratch him between the ears. Flakes of dirt came away from his fur and floated into the air. 

\--- 

“Out here again?” asked Maggie. 

Micah stopped the porch swing with both feet and looked up at her. “Yeah. I think I like it out here.” 

“It’s cold.” 

“I know. I don’t mind it.” 

“You’re strange, Micah Bell.” 

“I know. I don’t mind that, either.” 

Maggie sat down on the swing and crossed her arms against the chill. “They've made you up a bed in the main room. Isn’t much. Some blankets, couple of the cushions.” she said, keeping her eyes to the ranch. 

“That’d be fine,” he replied, picking at a splinter on the armrest. 

Maggie kicked off the swing and they sat in silence for a time, listened to the chains groan and the wind call. Micah looked out for a dim light in the distance. Somewhere out there in the forest was a strange man with a magic campfire. 

“I think I was a little cruel to you before dinner,” Maggie said. 

Micah tried not to move to face her. “No, you were a lot cruel.” 

Maggie frowned. 

He glanced aside in time to catch her reaction. “I mean, you were cruel but I think I deserved that. I was actin’ badly and I shouldn’t have.” 

“I shouldn’t have said you were scared of your father. That was rude.” 

“Especially as you’ve only known me three days.” 

Maggie looked at him, and he was glad to see she was back to smiling. “I think it’d be nice to know you for a few days more. If that’s all right?” 

Micah pretended to think on it. “Fine by me.” 

“Is this the part where we spit in our hands and shake on it?” she asked. 

“Only if you wanna make it a real deal.” 

Maggie wrinkled her nose and spoke through clenched teeth. “Could we do it without the saliva part?” 

Micah tilted his head from side to side. “It wouldn’t be real.” 

“Only if we told.” 

Micah rolled his eyes and stuck out his hand. 

Maggie spat on her palm and clasped her hand in his. “Gotcha,” she said with her eyebrows high. She laughed and wrapped her other hand around the top of his, then let him go and went inside. 

Micah left his hand hovering in the air long enough for the cold to start freezing the spit on his palm. He sighed, finally wiped his hand down on his pants leg and slumped in the swing. His heart was rolling free around his rib cage. 

Somewhere in the woods above, a light flickered. Micah leaned forward and watched it, hands clasped between his knees. 

_Sometime in the future, sometime soon, your father, Micah Bell, is going to ask you to do something._

Micah stared at the light in the trees until his vision went black from focusing on it. He wasn’t sure what was worse – the strange bastard knowing so much, or knowing that the strange bastard was right. He would do what his father told him when the time for the something arrived. Not doing what he was told never ended well. 

Micah absent-mindedly reached a hand over his shoulder and massaged a shoulder blade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowee what a horrid ride............. thanks to the 3 ppl who still read this!!


	14. The Condition

The doctor’s office in Cranberry was small. There was a desk, a wall lined with small storage shelves and a few old chairs sitting in a row in front of the window. A room at the back looked just about big enough to house a single patient in a bed. 

Micah took a seat and propped his elbow up onto the back of the chair. He stared out of the murky window and watched Cranberry get along. A horse threw a shoe, its rider too busy talking with his friend alongside him to notice. A little girl unhappy with something screeched like a vulture and pulled on her mother’s arm. Carts, dogs, people all rolled on past like a zoetrope, round and round. 

The back door opened. Micah glanced up and the old man tugging down his sleeves looked at him through half-moon spectacles. “I’m afraid if you want an appointment you’ll have to come on by tomorrow. I’m fully booked with home visits today,” he said. 

Micah sat straight and adjusted the big hunting coat he’d been loaned by the Briggses. He was using it to hide his arm. “Why do you think I want an appointment?” 

The old doctor waved his hands and twirled a finger in his direction. “Bumps and scrapes aren’t really worth seeing me about, though I recommend using proper bandages for that hand and not an old dusty handkerchief.” 

Micah reached a hand to his face where it was still bruised and stinging, then stood, both hands now in his pockets. “Mister, I ain’t here for me. I, uh... my father got brought in here yesterday. Was just lookin’ to check up on him, see if he’s right again.” 

The doctor slung a black bag onto the counter and began packing it, opening drawers in quick succession to retrieve contraptions Micah would prefer not to learn the names of. After a while the old man stopped and rested his hands on the desk. “You look just like him,” he said, pushing his glasses up. 

“I don’t think so,” Micah said. He squeezed his teeth together. 

“Huh. Well. I hope, unlike your father, you won’t be giving me any trouble.” 

“Trouble?” 

“Yes. Trouble. Won’t sit still, won’t accept no bandages without a fight, won’t rest, won’t stop cussin’. Why, by the way you’re acting now I’d be inclined to believe you were the one in charge and he was the insolent child.” 

Micah sighed and looked down at the floorboards under his boots. He should have known his father would have kicked up an almighty fuss. They were lucky they weren’t known in Crawford County well enough to rouse suspicion if he was truly hollering like the doctor said. He rubbed away perspiration from the back of his neck and went to the desk. “I better see him. Just to be sure he’s all right.” 

The old doctor took off his glasses and cleaned them with the tail of his untucked shirt before replacing them back onto his nose. “You have ten minutes for a brief visit,” he said. 

Micah headed to the door, but the doctor spoke again. 

“Young man?” 

Micah turned, hand still outstretched for the door handle. 

The doctor lowered his head. The wisps of the hair he had left glowed in the morning light shining through the window behind him. His glasses slid down his nose. “You tell your father he’s to remain here for at least another day. I imagine he’s putting on his boots and coat at this very moment, so please deter him if you’d be so kind.” 

Micah gave a quick nod and entered the back room. 

His father was sitting up and putting on his boots. 

Micah closed the door and pressed his back against it. “You shouldn’t be doin’ that,” he said. 

There was a bruise spreading from his father’s hairline down across his eye to his cheekbone. His usually slicked and gleaming hair was sticking out like grass between the wrappings of the bandage wound around his head. Under his shirt there were more bandages. Micah felt a pang of guilt. Or fear. “Shouldn’t be doin’ what?” his father asked, pausing. 

“That. Gettin' dressed. You have to rest up.” 

His father dropped his boot and raised his hands up, eyes wide. He slapped his hands back down again on his knees. Micah blinked through a flinch. “Is you a doctor?” his father said. 

Micah said nothing. His throat was already closing over and his eyes heating up. A tiny breath escaped through his teeth. 

“I asked you if you was a doctor. A medicine man. A nurse. A expert on doctorly practices or some such. Well, are you?” 

“No, but-” 

His father leaned forward and raised his voice. “Are you?” 

Micah closed his eyes hard until he saw specks of white on the backs of his eyelids. “No.” 

“No. You aren’t.” His father sniffed and tugged on his second boot, grimacing through the entire ordeal. 

Micah kept his back to the door and looked away, a hand favoring his arm. “The doctor, he said-” 

“Forget what the doctor said. Doctors say and they say and they say and they never do.” 

Micah clicked his tongue. “That’s because a lot of the time the doin’ has to be done by the patient.” 

His father shot him a glare. 

“I’m just sayin’.” 

“Stop sayin’.” His father stood up, unsteady on his feet, and ran a hand across his forehead where the bandage was. “I was told,” he said, picking up his coat from the bed and folding it over his arm, “by Briggs and one of his fool boys that it was that boy who been botherin’ you who done it. Who threw all them timbers onto me.” 

Micah nodded and crossed his arms. “I-it was. I tried to stop him, I did.” 

His father smiled and shook his head. His posture relaxed and he tried a tentative stretch of his arms, twisted his torso to one side as far as he dared. After experimenting with how much movement he could allow himself, he went to Micah. He placed a strangely gentle hand on his good shoulder and patted it, squeezed it. 

Micah lifted his eyes and met his father’s. He’d not spent much time looking in mirrors, shame having kept him away, but he knew by memory that his father’s eyes were the same as his own, right down to the brown flecks around the pupil. 

His father breathed out and hummed to himself. “I know it was you.” 

Micah felt his pulse lurch. It was so strong he swore his hands jumped in time with it. “No, no, I would never, it-” 

“I know it was you,” he father said again. He pressed his thumb into Micah’s collarbone where he held him. 

Micah slumped and turned his face away, eyes shut. “Please, let me tell you why I did it. Please, I’ll tell you,” he said, rolling his eyes under their lids at how small his voice was. He waited for the strike, for the shake, for the slap. Nothing. He eased open an eye. 

His father still loomed over him, a dark expression on his face, but he was waiting. 

Micah cleared his throat, tried not to choke on air hitting the back of it with his next breath, and faced his father properly. His quivering hands he hid in the hunting coat’s deep pockets. “I did it to save us.” 

His father raised his eyebrows, winced when it disturbed the bruising on his forehead, then took his hand from Micah’s shoulder to grasp a fistful of hair above his ear. 

“Wait! Wait! He was gonna rat on us!” Micah said in a semi-squeak, his hands flying to pull on his father’s arm. His father’s fingers twisted his hair harder. Micah’s eyes watered. “He was! He was gonna! He told me he suspected us and he knew we wasn’t just at the ranch to work. He was attackin’ me! So I did what I did! Please, I got rid of him for us! For you!” 

His father stopped, then let him go with a push. Micah stood away and didn’t think to smooth his hair back down he was so afraid. He was panting. When had he started panting? His scalp stung. He wanted sorely to scratch at it, but resisted. Instead he used a sleeve to wipe at his eyes. He couldn’t leave any tears under them for his father to notice. 

“This boy said that? That he suspected?” said his father, rubbing his chin. 

“In his own way. I had to do somethin’ to get him gone. I-I'm sorry. For what I did. But you’re always sayin’... you’re always sayin’ we gotta do what needs doin’. And it just so happens that I had to set somethin’ up real fast. I’m sorry, please, I am. Don’t be angry at me. Don’t.” Micah clasped his hands together and wished his tone hadn’t grown softer with each word he spoke. 

His father was silent. He pulled on his coat and fixed the collar, making for the door. 

Micah ran to block him, both arms out. “You can’t go! You gotta stay here. T-think of it as, uh, playin’ up your injuries and makin’ it like you really got hurt bad. The Briggs ranch will sympathize more with us and any suspicions will be cast aside completely. Please, stay here for today and-and maybe come on back tomorrow?” 

His father at first tried to push through him. However, he relented and stepped back. “All right,” he said in too-kind a voice, “I’ll stay.” 

Micah dropped his hands to his side and nodded, gave a twitchy smile. 

“On one condition, I shall stay.” 

Micah swallowed down the air stuck in his mouth and wheezed. “What? What is it?” His heart was already thudding again. 

“I shall stay here, rest up, get me some beauty sleep, as long as you don’t talk to that silly little girl anymore.” His father’s grin was like a rattlesnake’s. 

Micah stood fast despite the temptation to wither to his knees. He lifted his chin and stared. “What’s that got to do with anythin’?” 

“It’s the condition. Think of it as the punishment, if you like. That girl is makin’ you weak. Men don’t talk with women like they is the same. She’s been stoppin you doin’ work, so if you want me to stay here, you don’t speak with her and you get along with the boys on the ranch and get that roof fixed. Am I understood?” 

“How do you know I won’t just keep on speakin’ with her? You’ll be here and I’ll be there,” said Micah, his defiant posture starting to slouch. He hated it. He hated how his father’s words could batter him down like a wind in a storm. 

“Oh, I asked old Briggs and his man to keep a watch on you. Keep a watch on that boy o’ mine, I says to ‘em, make sure he gets on with work. And when I get back, I’m gonna ask those ranch hands if they seen you workin’ or lazin’, and they will answer honestly. They wouldn’t say no to a poor, injured man who’s been nothin’ but friendly to ‘em since the day he arrived. Oh, no, sir. So, I will have eyes on you, boy. I will know if you talk to the little lady.” 

Micah was out of words, his mind empty and useless as a chamber with no rounds. Without a word he jerked his head in a nod and shut the door on his father, who was still grinning. 

“He’s going to stay today, Mister,” he said to the doctor on his way out. 

“Oh, that’s marvelous news. Thank you for persuading him,” the doctor managed to get out before the door to his practice swung open and slammed closed again. 

Micah had forgotten how cold and sharp the morning was outside. The air froze his nostrils when he breathed in. He slipped a hand into his hair where his father had grabbed it and took hold of it himself, squeezed it until the pain doubled what it had been before. After a moment, and when it became too much, he let go and untethered his horse to head back to the ranch, his frown hurting and his brows so low he was almost blind. 

“Micah!” 

He stopped with one foot in a stirrup and looked over his shoulder to see Maggie. She was riding Honeybird through the center of town and had more letters in her hand. The blue of her dress was like water flowing over Honeybird’s warm, sandy coat. No. Go away. Go away. 

Micah swung up onto his horse. 

“Micah! It’s me, wait!” Maggie called over, geeing up Honeybird into a faster trot. 

He guided the horse to face away from her and jabbed at the horse’s side, forcing him into a clumsy canter forward. 

Maggie’s voice quickly faded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dad doesnt ship that ):


	15. Catching the Crestline

Micah made it to the outskirts of Cranberry before he yanked back on the horse’s reigns and brought him to a standstill. He dismounted and led the horse to the side of the road, tethered him half-heartedly to a tree. 

His pulse was roaring again, for what felt like the fiftieth time that day, and the five hundredth time that week. He took a handful of his shirt over his chest and twisted the material, backing up to the tree and sliding down it, letting the bark graze him. The dirt was cold and damp and soaked through his pants legs. 

He pictured his father. He pictured the bandages around his old man’s head unraveling and unraveling until they became strips of skin and his face disappeared, peeled away, red and wet and shining. Horns rose from his forehead, grew like branches to the sky, black and curling and sharp, and they never stopped reaching. They grew so heavy they creaked and snapped and the shards fell to the ground. 

“Micah.” 

Micah looked up and the Devil washed away. Maggie walked through the haze he left behind. “Maggie,” Micah said, feeling his expression twist and pull into something hopeless. 

Maggie was leading Honeybird, a hand on her horse’s nose, and stopped a few paces away. 

Micah sprang to his feet and all of his old injuries gave a twinge of pain at the same time. 

“Micah Bell, I never took you for one to be deaf,” said Maggie, a hand on her hip. 

“I ain’t. I ain’t deaf, Maggie, I...” 

Maggie cleared her throat and ran her hand down Honeybird’s neck. 

He swayed where he stood, a hand going to his arm, his thumb pressed over the wound as he thought. 

“Would you ride back to the ranch with me?” she asked after a moment. She raised her eyes and looked at him. The final cold rays of sunrise shone through her ringlets. 

“Do you want that?” he said. 

“Doesn’t matter what I want. Matters what my Uncle Roscoe wants. And he wants you back at the ranch to do that work you both discussed last night.” 

Her voice sounded flat, and it hurt him right in his center. He nodded and took up his horse’s reigns. 

On the road back through Cranberry, Micah turned in his saddle to face away from the doctor’s office as they passed it. He knew his father couldn’t see, but it made him feel better not to look. The motion, unfortunately, faced him to Maggie, and she assumed he wanted to talk. 

“How is he?” she asked, raising her brows. 

“He’s himself again already, thank you. He should be back to it by tomorrow.” 

“That’s good. I am glad of that.” 

They fell silent. The town made noise around them. Micah felt a rising horror, and it felt like the creature which had tried to claw its way from his gut to his throat the night before. The ride was his final chance. A last opportunity to speak with Maggie in relative comfort was there, waiting, and he wasn’t saying a word. 

“Micah?” she said once they’d left Cranberry and reached the road which led to the ranch. 

He looked at her. Or rather, at the top of her forehead. 

“Micah, I’m sorry. For what’s happened this week. For the rustlers, for the accident, for Couzens being rotten to you. For me being rotten to you... I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ranch worker get so hurt in such a short time.” 

“Ain’t hurt,” he said. He lied. 

Maggie pulled Honeybird aside to walk closer to his horse. Their boots almost touched. “You sure are hurt. Look at you. I don’t know how you aren’t lying flat on your back with it all. I cut my finger and gosh, it hurts something dreadful. But here you are, puttin’ up so politely with all those cuts and bruises that you wouldn’t have had if you hadn’t come along to the ranch to work.” 

Micah bristled. He felt invisible hackles rise on his back. “Maggie, none of that makes no nevermind to me. We is here to do a job. We wanna do it. That’s all. What happens durin’ that job, well, it’s just what happens. Ain’t no point bein’ all sorry for it otherwise you’d end up sayin’ sorry for everythin’. Sorry for the leaves fallin’ from the trees. Sorry for the animals that get eaten by the other animals. Sorry for the sun goin’ down each night. You didn’t do nothin’.” 

Maggie looked at him. Really stared. Micah met her gaze for all of three seconds before he glanced away up the trail. 

They rode without words once more. Micah listened to the thud of his horse’s hoofs beneath him, fell into a lull as the animal moved and muscles bunched and swelled. Around them the countryside rose and fell. Spindly trees shivered against the evergreens. The last reds and yellows of fall were fading. 

Maggie leaned back in her saddle and breathed deep. “I always miss this place,” she said. 

He looked up with a hum, eyes drooping. 

“Williamstown is fine, and frankly, I don’t think it’s so far away to make much of a difference, but there’s something about this place. About Cranberry, about the ranch. The air is better. Or maybe it just seems better to me because I don’t know it. As if it’s something special, something rare. Everytime I go back I just, I get this wistful feeling. Again and again. I shall miss it so awfully this time.” 

“Go back?” he said. 

Maggie turned to him with a puzzled frown, then smirked. “Home,” she said. 

Micah remembered the first time he’d seen her, rushing down the hill, dust and skirts flying, the old dog George racing to greet her. He’d dropped firewood as he watched her. Then a boy beside him told him she only visited when she wasn’t schooling or minding other people’s children. 

“Why are you sayin’ this?” 

Maggie shrugged. “I suppose it is because I go tomorrow, I’m feeling a little sad.” 

Micah’s hands twitched and the reigns flailed. His horse shook his head. “Then don’t,” he said. 

“Don’t what?” she asked. 

“Don’t go back home, if it makes you so sad, like you said. Stay a little longer. Won’t hurt you.” He fought to keep his voice level. 

She laughed a small huff through her nose. “I have things to go back to.” 

“You got things to stay for, too.” 

He caught her look, then realized she’d caught his look back. Micah whipped his head away and watched the countryside roll by. He squeezed his eyes shut against it, felt the tendons in his neck tighten. 

“Micah-” 

“I know! I know. You only known me four days. And what was it? Only reason you and your family treat me different is because you all feel sad for me? That ain’t no reason to stay, you’re right. Go home early. Go home right now for all I care,” he said. A moment later his eyes opened and the world seemed colder. He couldn’t bear to turn around and look at her after his words hissed out from between his teeth. He’d not meant them to, had hoped his tongue would get in the way and block them, but they were said and there was no unsaying them. 

Maggie said nothing. He still wasn’t looking at her, but he could hear the rustle of her dress as her horse moved. 

Micah bent lower over his horse’s neck and slapped the reigns, steering away from the road onto a track winding away down the hill. 

“That isn’t the way back,” Maggie called. 

He didn’t reply, instead digging his heels harder, the horse jerking forward into a worried canter. 

“Micah! That isn’t the way back!” Maggie’s voice was louder, shrill, almost a scream. 

Micah risked a glance over his shoulder. Maggie was pursuing. Honeybird was powering down the slope. Go back, he wanted to yell, but instead he kicked his horse and turned the canter into a gallop. The animal snorted and grunted with every hoofbeat, sending up dirt and stones as he surged forward. Micah’s knuckles were white with the force of his grip on the reigns. He was breathing as hard as the horse, teeth gritted. 

Up ahead loomed a raised railroad. By either wonderful or hideous chance, a train was rumbling along it in the distance, leaning into the curve of the tracks like a snake. Micah looked back again at Maggie, who was still rushing along behind him, and he whipped the reigns against his horse’s neck, yelled for him to move. The pair of them sailed over the tracks in an arcing leap, the horse graceful but his rider holding tight, and landed heavily in the thin grass on the other side. Micah halted them with a sharp tug and turned them around, then slid from the saddle onto unsteady legs. 

Maggie and her horse were still hurrying down the hill. Micah went to the track, put the heel of his boot against it, felt the thunder of the train’s wheels judder up into his bones. “Turn back,” he said. 

The train rolled on, steam billowing, wheels screaming, pistons turning and screeching. Its horn roared. Micah stared at it. It was like an animal, steely and sharp, the pilot on the front like a jutting jaw with the bars as teeth. With every second he gawped, the locomotive sped ten yards closer. He could almost smell the oil and the coal. 

He looked across at Maggie. Honeybird was starting to slow, he could see the rolling whites of her eyes from where he stood. _Stop. You have to stop. Pull back on the reigns. Stop._

Maggie slapped the reigns and gave a cry to Honeybird. A burst of speed sent the both of them flying forward. 

Micah looked across to the train. Its faceplate, like a single, black eye, was almost upon them. He could see the bolts holding it on, wobbling with the pressure. He had to step away from the track the rattle was shaking him so much. He skipped back a few paces and held up his hands. If Maggie stopped now the train would go by without her stuck to the front of it or sliced up underneath it. 

He could see the veins on Honeybird’s nose and the embossed, brass number of the train in the same blink. Two beasts, flesh and metal, were screaming. Deafened, Micah cowered away, covered his ears with his hands. There was a thud. The wheels of the train wailed past like a hundred banshees. 

Panting, Micah stayed frozen, bent double, unwilling to look. When he finally mustered the courage to unfurl himself, he leapt backward. His eyes had met the golden shoulder of Honeybird, streaked with lines of sweat, not two inches away. He looked up at Maggie, sitting straight in her saddle and shuddering. 

“I said,” she breathed in a hoarse voice, “this isn’t the way back.” 

The train roared again and disappeared into the trees. 

Maggie slipped off her saddle and clung to it to keep herself upright, swaying. She put out a hand against him to stop him getting closer. He’d never even considered drawing near. 

“You-” he said. 

“You’re too impulsive, Micah Bell.” 

Micah blinked. “I’m sorry, _I’m_ too impulsive?” he said, waving a hand to the railroad track beside them. 

Maggie snapped her head around to look at him. Her hair was flyaway and her eyes wide despite the frown. She gave Honeybird a few pats and tried to calm her. Her horse was stamping and hopping from hoof to hoof. “That was the Crestline,” she said to herself, narrowing her eyes, a hand still slapping Honeybird’s neck. “I almost caught it all the way to Heaven.” 

Micah snorted a laugh. He turned it into a cough the second he spotted Maggie’s look. 

Maggie’s face creased into a smile and she pressed a first to her mouth, giggled into her fingers. 

He laughed again with her, then let it peter away before taking a deep breath of the last of the Crestline’s steam. Its thin mist was still lingering. 

“You know,” Maggie said, letting Honeybird wander away to recover alone, “did you ever consider that we treat you differently because we just like you?” 

Micah rubbed at his arm where it ached again and strolled in a circle. Her words in that moment made something lurch in his stomach. Immediately his mind said no. _No. There was no such thing as liking Micah Bell. It was an impossible task._ “Why are you sayin’ that?” he asked in a small voice. 

“That’s why you ran away just then, wasn’t it? Why I chased after you, why I only just beat that train?” 

His stomach flipped around again. “Are you mad?” 

Maggie laughed. “I’m madder than I’ve ever been.” 

Micah’s shoulders dropped and he circled further away from her. Finally, he turned back and held his hands together in front of him. “I don’t know why I do those things,” he said. The voice in his head, the mean-spirited one, snarled. _Stop speaking!_

“Do what things? Running in front of trains?” she asked, approaching. Micah held up a hand to keep her back, like she had to him a moment earlier. 

“I done worse things than that.” 

“I don’t think so,” she said, smiling, encouraging. 

“I know so, Maggie-May. I know so. Because I done ‘em. And I don’t know why I do ‘em. And let them things be done. I just... sometimes I just watch. And that feels worse than doin’ em. So I do those things to stop that feelin’, but I get a dozen more. And then all I can think about is what if I get to like that feelin’? What if I forget to feel bad? I think I already am.” It was the second time he hadn’t meant to let his words get away from him. As he spoke, he backed up away from Maggie, but she closed the gap with a step for every two he took. 

“Micah, is this about what happened up in the hills with that man Stone? Is this about you hurting him?” she asked. 

His expression, whatever it had been before, crumbled. _Lie. Lie! She can’t know. Not ever._ It was his only choice. 

“Yes,” he said, breathing in and standing up straight, keeping his voice flat, “yes, that’s... exactly it. It’s about that.” 

Maggie moved in and before he had time to take another breath, she pulled him into an embrace. He wheezed, his chin hooked over her shoulder and his hands, still clasped together in front of him, crushed between them. He slid them away from their bodies, careful not to brush even a fingertip against anything of hers which might suggest something untoward, and held them out to his sides. He decided to put them around her back, and surprised himself with the strength of his grip on her dress. 

What did he do? Stay like that? Pull away from her? Give her a shake and tell her never to touch him? Why was he holding on so tight? How long had he been pressing the side of his head against hers? 

She still had the shakes from the train. He held on, breathed, closed his eyes. He’d never been so warm. 

“Do you feel bad?” she asked in a whisper. Her breath was hot on his neck. 

“Yes,” he breathed. 

He felt her squeeze harder, her fingers pressing into his shoulders. “Why?” she said. 

His breathing quivered. “Because you’re so good. You’re so good and I’m so bad.” 

Maggie parted them, her hands still holding onto his shoulders. His eyes he kept closed. He didn’t dare open them in fear of what might escape. 

“You aren’t bad,” she said. “You haven’t done a single bad thing. Not here. Not to us. To me.” 

Micah eased open an eye. A tear escaped and he put a hand over his face to catch it. “Please don’t laugh at me,” he said. The voice in his head was cackling with its own horror at the display. 

“Why would I do that?” she said. 

Micah pulled his hand away, ran it down his face, felt his fingers bump over the swelling welts and cuts. Maggie looked serene, caring, genuine. There was concern in the frown and affection in the smile. His thoughts turned to his father in that moment. His father and the plan he had. The job. The strange job. And he was sorry. Sorry for this girl he barely knew with all that goodness in her heart. Sorry for the family back at the ranch who would surely somehow find themselves caught up in his father’s cruelty. Sorry for the world which had to tolerate his being in it. But for all the difference it made, he might as well have been sorry for the leaves falling from the trees, sorry for the animals which got eaten by the other animals, and sorry for the sun going down each night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: what am i doin
> 
> also me: put in some foreshadowing thats all u need


	16. All Right

Micah stopped his horse at the top of the trail down to the ranch.

Maggie walked her horse a few more paces before she noticed and turned about. “What is it?” she asked.

“There was somethin’ else. Somethin’ else I have to tell you.”

She tilted her head and gave him a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that I hugged you. My uncle would send the both of us for hanging in town if he knew, so the secret’s safe.”

“That’s not... really?”

Maggie pretended to be horrified, hand on chest. “Oh, yes. I don’t know how it is in Darke County, Mister Bell, but here, ladies don’t hug boys they aren’t married to. They don’t even hug the boys they _are_ married to.”

“It’s not about that, but I ‘ppreciate your discreetness.”

“Discretion.”

“That’s what I said. But I gotta tell you this before we go back.”

Maggie frowned, still smiling, then took Honeybird back up to where he was on the top of the track. She drew alongside him and leaned backward. “What is it? Is it about what we talked of by the train tracks? I know a man’s pride has to be protected. I won’t say anything of it.”

“It’s not that. When we get back down there, we can’t talk no more.” He looked away before she had time to change her expression, took that picture of her smile with him before it disappeared.

“I don’t understand,” she said. There was still a hint of a confused smile in her voice.

Micah sighed.

“All right,” said Maggie, pressing her lips together and fixing her hair back over her shoulders, “if that’s what he wants, then that’s what he’ll get.”

“He?” asked Micah, pulse rushing around again and already tiring him out.

“Your father. I know those are his words, not yours. But I’ll do it.”

“It was the only way I could get him to stay away. I mean, stay in town and get better.”

Maggie gave him a knowing look. He nodded and gave his horse a nudge to get moving. He let Maggie take the lead, hanging back with his head down to make it seem he was being led in shame back from town unwillingly, just in case his father’s unwitting spies spotted him riding beside her.

When they reached the ranch, Maggie dismounted and took Honeybird to the stables. Micah was about to follow when he saw Jean waving on the porch.

“Master Bell, would you come over here?” she said.

He cleared his throat and gave his horse a slap on the flank to go on behind Maggie, then hopped up the porch steps. “Mornin’ Missus Briggs,” he said. 

“Master Bell, good morning,” Jean replied, dusting down her dress. “If you’d be so kind as to come inside?”

Micah tapped his foot on the boards and looked around to where Maggie was still leading the horses.

“I won’t keep you long,” said Jean, offering a hand out to the doorway, “I promise.”

With a raise of his brows and a sheepish smirk, Micah went inside. He headed to the kitchen and held his hands out, balancing his weight on one leg. “What’s this all about, Missus Briggs?”

Jean heaved her medical bag onto the kitchen table with a heavy thump. “Don’t think I haven’t seen the state of your shirt, young man. You’ve torn some stitches, that much I can tell, and I’m not talking about the cloth kind.”

Micah hovered a hand over his bad arm, his fingers an inch from it. “Ain’t nothin’, Missus Briggs. I just knocked it. Everythin’s as it was.”

Jean shook her head and held out a hand. “Won’t take a minute. I need to check it, anyhow. And the rest. Come on, sit down.”

Micah shuffled around the table and perched on a seat, his hands stuck between his knees and his shoulders up at his ears.

“You’ll need to take your shirt off,” said Jean, a needle shining silver in her fingers.

“Can’t we do this like before?”

Jean laughed through her words. “Goodness no, your sleeve was half-ripped off last time which granted, made it easier, but I’ll not have you tear a perfectly good shirt this time.”

“I’d rather just tear the shirt, mam,” he replied. His knees squeezed his hands until his fingers started to ache.

Jean sat back and clicked her tongue. “You got nothing I’ve not seen before, young man. I’m always patching up the boys when they harm themselves out there like the lackadaisical fools that they are. Saves us the pennies that might otherwise go to the doctor. Not that Doctor Sampson isn’t good, he’s just... well, things cost. Now, please.”

Micah shrugged off Briggs's hunting coat and draped it onto the table. A hand then went to his shirt collar and undid the first button. He swore he could see his heartbeat thudding under the material it was going so hard behind his ribs. He felt faint, almost sick, but he went down the line, unbuttoning his shirt. When he was done, he only slid off the right side, shrugging his thin arm out from the sleeve. The rest of the shirt stayed on, and he pulled it across his front to cover himself from the collarbone down.

When Jean turned back to face him, he saw he’d annoyed her by only semi-obeying her request. She tutted, but didn’t say anything. She took his arm by the elbow and twisted it into the light. “Good news is it’s all looking fine. Nothin’ rotting. Bad news is you ripped the stitches. Maybe that’s my fault, not making ‘em tight enough...”

“Maybe,” he said, keeping his eyes away.

Jean held the needle to his skin, then took it away. “Would you prefer I got Doctor Sampson to do this? The other day you weren’t as awake as you are now. He might have something for pain.”

“There’s nothin’ for pain that works on me, mam. It’s all right. But please be quick.”

The point of the needle piercing his flesh was the worst part. Until she pushed it through and pulled it out, then that was the worst part. It made him wonder how delirious he’d been last time, only a couple of days ago. That felt like years back. He sighed and hissed and winced and sat as still as he could.

“I trust your father is well as he can be?” she asked.

Micah rolled his eyes behind their lids and then forced a vague smile. “He’s well, thank you. Should be back tomorrow.”

“That’s good,” she replied in an unsure voice, which made him look over at her. “That’s very good.”

“Missus Briggs?” he said after a long minute.

“Yes?”

“Are you gonna move that needle or cook me over an open fire by it?”

Jean blinked, then took the needle from where she’d been holding it upright in his skin and snapped the thread. “I am sorry! I didn’t mean to... I was just thinking. Are you all right?”

“Sure.”

“Sweetheart, I mean are you all right?” she said, brushing his hair back and inspecting the wound on his eyebrow. Micah flinched. “Your father,” she went on in that same unsure tone, “he’s... well, he’s your father, but there’s something else. I know it ain’t my business but, does he treat you right? You seem very used to all these little hurts. My husband told me he was quite _unconcerned_ after that nasty business with the rustlers, almost downright angry, and that sorta thing, well, it gets me worryin’.”

Micah looked at Jean, at her kind, homely face, at the little lines around her eyes, and he saw Patience. The Patience who’d touched his face and told him she would try to be someone she didn’t really want to be. Or perhaps she did.

“I’m all right,” he said after a pause, “I’m all right.”

Jean’s smile was sad. Unconvinced. Her eyes were a little wet when she blinked and looked away. “Well, that’s your arm back to normal. Please look after it. Are you hurt anywhere else?” She flicked her eyes to where he held his shirt against his body.

“No, no, please, I’m not,” he said.

Jean smiled and stood up to put her medical gear away. Micah breathed and pulled his shirt back on as hastily as his arm would allow.

“You should go out and find Roscoe now. He’s got a job for you. Hopefully an easy one, I told him to go easy on you, what with your arm.”

Micah got up and fixed his shirt, finished buttoning it. “Th-thanks, Missus Briggs,” he said.

“Oh, enough of that stuffy formal nonsense, it’s Jean.” Jean beamed.

“Oh, all right, thank you, Jean. Where is Mister Briggs?”

“Last I saw him he was out by the barn. Ask around.”

Micah nodded and went to the door.

“Micah,” said Jean before he left. He stopped with a hand on the door's frame. “Don’t go mentionin’ Margaret-May around old Roscoe, if you can help it. Now, I know you like talkin’ to her because you don’t get along too good with the other boys, and I think she likes you, too. But men... men have a tendency to claim ownership of things that aren’t really theirs, but think they are. They get possessive. Angry. I believe you know what I mean.”

“I’m way ahead of you, Jean. Don’t worry,” he said with another bow of his head before he disappeared out into the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhhh have another chapter today i just was on a weird roll yknow???? jean's woke about that patriarchy


	17. Nice Shootin', Tex

Micah found Briggs around by the vegetable garden. Briggs was leaned down and digging, his sleeves rolled up on his big arms and despite the winter chill, was sweating as he worked. Micah stayed back by the fence and picked at splinters on the wood, waiting. He listened to the sound of the shovel slicing through dirt and Briggs’s whistling, breathed the sharp air, tilted his head back to look up at the gray sky above.

“Ah, Master Bell.”

Micah looked down and across the stark garden to Briggs. Briggs was beaming again. His entire mustache curved upward when he did it. Micah smiled back.

Briggs trekked over and pulled off his gloves.

“What’re you doin’? Ain’t growin’ season, far as I know,” said Micah.

“It surely is not, but we gotta cultivate the land in preparation for it. Weeds don’t pull ‘emselves out,” Briggs replied, sighing and wiping a glove over his forehead. “How’s your old man? He recoverin’ well?”

“Huh? Oh, yes, he’s doin’ good. Mister Briggs, you, uh, you wanted to see me? For somethin’? Your wife, she said you had a job for me?”

Briggs raised his eyebrows and shoved his old gloves into his back pocket, then walked along the fence to a cloth sack filled with weeds. Micah balled a hand into a fist at his side. Instead of revealing a trowel, however, Briggs picked up a small wooden crate and tucked it under one arm as if it was the weight of a small dog. Micah watched with eyes wide until Briggs pushed the crate into his arms.

“There you go,” he said. “A job.”

Micah peered into the crate and small devices made of wood and metal bars and coiled springs clattered and clunked inside. “Traps?” he said.

“Yep. Jeanie told me to go easy on you. Don’t normally believe in goin’ easy on people. Life ain’t about to go easy so I try to live by the same rule. However, what with your arm and what you done for us with the rustlers, I’ll go easy this one time.”

Micah wasn’t sure whether to look horrified or honored. He settled for a look halfway between the two. Horrored. “Mister Briggs, sir, I... ain’t you got a cat who can do this kinda thing?” he said, feeling his fingers starting to ache as they held the crate up.

Briggs scratched the edge of his mustache. “We did.”

Micah said nothing. He imagined a wagon left a pulpy smear in its wake one unfortunate day not so long ago.

“What... what are we trappin’?” he asked, trying to lean back and balance the crate on his hipbones.

Briggs smirked. “You are trappin’ and killin’ rats.”

Micah stared. “Oh, no, I don’t like those, Mister Briggs. I seen ‘em jump onto people and latch on like they’s got nothin’ else but spite in ‘em. Anyway, don’t they sleep in the winter like all them other animals?”

A bark of laughter from Briggs made him start. “Rats? Sleep? They don’t never sleep. C’mon, lemme show you where there’re all holed up,” said Briggs, before pausing, “wait.”

The traps weighing down the crate rattled as Micah watched Briggs stoop once more by the sack. He picked up from the ground the belt and revolver he’d recovered from Stone. Micah looked away, ashamed he’d abandoned it so easily.

“This is yours, son,” said Briggs, brandishing the belt, “don’t be afraid of what it was. It’s in better hands now.”

Micah looked from brand new belt, shining even in the dull light, to Briggs’s face, warm and kind. He shifted the crate to balance it on his side and reached out to take the belt. It was heavy.

Briggs grinned and strode toward the shed. Micah followed.

The shed was the size of a small barn. It was the type of building which grew larger with every step taken to reach it, as if it was a large animal sensing an oncoming threat and puffing up. Briggs heaved open the door and Micah placed the crate on the ground. He pulled on the belt, fighting to buckle it as Briggs talked.

“That bad rain we had tore a hole in the roof here, too. Place been exposed and all this damp got in. Along with our guests,” Briggs said, stopping on the threshold with his hands on his hips. “Ever seen a rat’s nest, son?”

Micah fiddled with the clasp on the belt and pulled it, then looped it through the buckle. “I can’t say that I have, no,” he said.

“Ever seen a tumbleweed?”

Micah raised an eyebrow and leaned back on one leg, his hands loose at his sides.

“All right,” laughed Briggs, “just imagine one of those, only it’s made of shit.”

“Made of shit. Got it,” said Micah, walking past Briggs only to feel Briggs’s heavy hand on his shoulder. Micah swallowed back a gasp.

“Don’t disturb it. The nest. If you find it and you upset it in any way, those little bastards will abandon it and take up home someplace else, so be careful.”

Micah nodded, waited for Briggs to let him go, then went inside with the crate.

He waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. A single shaft of dim light, like the eye of God through cloudy sunsets, shone in the corner where the roof had fallen through. The barn was used for storage, and had been for a long while; cobwebs hung thick as drapes from the rafters. Animal feed and tools lined the walls. There was a faint smell of something like tar, and something like shit.

Micah placed the crate as quiet as he could onto the floor. He sat on his haunches and scooped out a trap. Setting them was simple enough - click back the hoop and wait for the coil to ping. They were the tombstone type. He’d seen them behind the bars of the saloons his father liked to haul him into. Unsure where to set them, he chose to lay them close to the walls and underneath the workbenches. Anywhere dark, anywhere which could be considered an entrance for burrowing vermin.

He ended up on his front at the back of the barn using a fingertip to nudge a trap between stacked crates. The heels of his hands were grazed and black with dirt and he swore he was straining the stitches in his right arm as he squeezed it through the gap. Maybe they’d twang open and blood would come gouting out of his arm like a river, like red water rapids. He shouldered his way into the space and gave the trap a final push to slide it as far as it would go.

It bounded back into his hand.

Something scratched and scrabbled.

Micah only had time to scramble backward on his stomach and tuck his chin into his chest before a black rat the size of a small cat streaked up his arm and clawed his scalp as it ran screaming into the barn.

He shuddered, withdrew his arm, saw with disgust the brown tracks it had left up his sleeve, then looked across to see the creature dashing across the floor toward the doors and Briggs. Without blinking, Micah ripped Stone’s revolver from its holster with his left hand and, still lying on his side, aimed at the rat. Three rounds in quick succession cracked through the crisp air. The first shot sent the rat into the air screeching, blood and bits flying, the second shot hit it before it fell and tore it in half, and the third blasted through what was left of it when it splattered to the floor.

Micah kept the gun aimed, even as Briggs ran over. “Mister Briggs,” he gasped, sitting up, “I-I’m sorry, I didn’t... it came outta nowhere, sir, and I didn’t want it to get away so it could do more damage and I thought it might’ve gone for your leg or somethin’ so I... I shot it, sir.”

Briggs stepped over the remains of the rat and stood over him. Micah rolled onto his back and hated realizing that he was shaking. He spun the gun by its trigger guard and held up the grip to Briggs so he could take it from him, for now he would surely be banned from possessing it.

Instead of tearing the gun out of his hand, Briggs continued to look at him. “You always shoot with that left hand o’ yours?” he asked.

Micah wheezed and wiped sweat from the groove of his nose with his free hand. “Mostly, sir. Yes.”

“That isn’t the right hand,” said Briggs.

“No, it’s the left hand,” said Micah.

Briggs frowned, then laughed. It was booming and loud. Micah imagined it shook the dust on the ceiling above them. “You’re a funny one. You surely are. Here,” said Briggs after he’d caught his breath. He took the revolver from him and used his other hand to haul him up onto his feet in one move. Micah felt his brain rattle in his skull after being righted so fast. He pressed a hand to his forehead at the same time Briggs put the revolver back into his opposite hand.

“You’re a damn good shot for such a fidget. Definitely your father’s boy. Shoulda seen your old man with them rustlers. He was strikin’ ‘em right ‘tween the eyes, some of those fellas. And a lotta those shots were from horseback! We was all stunned to see it. I imagine you boys get a lotta work nightwatchin’ for other ranches, huh?”

Micah looked at Briggs’s keen expression and smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, we do. A lotta work doin’ that.”

Briggs grinned and patted his shoulder, then strolled to what was left of the rat, peering down at it. “Don’t worry about this one and his friends. We’ll find ‘em again and we’ll get ‘em. No sense worryin’. And at least there’s one less to chase,” he said. With a wide smile he clicked his fingers and rounded on Micah again, pointing. “Say, why don’t you go on outside and find the low wall on the other side of the paddock? I’ll meet you there. Got a second task for you.”

“Yes, sir,” said Micah. He went to the barn’s door only to turn on his heel and face Briggs again. “Are you angry?”

Briggs looked up and Micah wished he hadn’t asked, wished he didn’t have that horrible need to make sure people weren’t mad at the things he did, the things he said.

“What would give me cause to be angry, son?” asked Briggs.

Micah glanced away and ran a hand along the back of his neck where it was still damp, the other limp at his side holding the gun. “I don’t know. Me shootin’ that rat. Was dangerous. Coulda killed you on accident.”

“You was doin’ what your instinct said for you to do. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. It’s what you are. Some folks would do nothin’ and let the rat escape. Some would run in the other direction. Some would try to chase him, catch him alive maybe. And some would attack and get him before he got others. That last one’s you. You get ‘em. Same with that Stone feller. You got him before he got you. It’s how you survived.”

Briggs’s face was honest, warm even, and Micah breathed out. His father would have snapped, called him foolish, told him to aim better, that he should’ve killed the animal in one shot, not three. Or maybe he’d tell him it was a good-for-nothing rat and not worth wasting bullets on. Looking at Briggs, at his encouraging smile, the way his small eyes creased at the edges and his eyebrows drew together, gave Micah a relief he’d not felt in a long time. Was it relief? Was it rest? Was it something better than that?

“Get goin’ now, go on. Go wait by that wall and I’ll be over in a minute,” said Briggs, waving him away.

“You got it, boss,” said Micah, saluting him and starting off at a run, clumsily shoving the revolver back into its holster as he moved. He ran along the vegetable garden’s fence and skidded to a halt at the end to scan for the wall. He spotted it some way down the hill, shaded by an old, drooping tree. It was a jog this time to the wall. He leapt over it in one graceless jump and hit the grass beyond, falling into it and rolling onto his back. The ground was wet and the air was cold and his skin was gooseflesh with the chill of the wind and he couldn’t have been happier feeling all of it at once. He sighed and knitted his fingers together on his chest, stared up at the old tree with his head between its roots.

The clunk of pottery on rock made him sit up. He looked around to the wall and saw Briggs with his arms weighed down by plant pots, tin cans and even an old bucket which he had hooked around the fingers he had spare. He was balancing them all in a line on the top stones. “There you are, son. Thought you’d disappeared off. Close your eyes a moment, will you? While I set these,” said Briggs.

Micah drew his head back, confused, then closed his eyes, rolling them under the lids. There was a clattering and a clacking as Briggs went on. Briggs dropped something at one point and swore. Micah smirked.

“All right, take a look,” said Briggs.

Micah opened an eye, then the other, and barked a laugh. Briggs had set up a rudimentary shooting gallery made from old things from the storage barn. There was even a broken rat trap. He stood and brushed off his shoulders. “You want me to shoot all these? Like a game?”

“Why not? Show me how good y’are.”

“Ain’t that good.”

“Then show me how bad y’are.”

Micah shrugged and glanced around. What would it hurt to play a little game with the old man? He kicked at the dirt and drew closer to the wall. “What’s the rules? You gonna time me?”

“Time you? Oh, no, I’m gonna play agin you.”

“Is that entirely fair?”

Briggs huffed, pretended to be offended. “How do you mean by that? It’s fair. One who gets the most bullseyes wins.”

“No, no,” said Micah, scratching his chin, “there’s more to it. You made me close my eyes.”

Briggs grinned. “You got me. I hid a target. A secret one. Hit that and you win no matter how many others you shoot down.”

Micah crossed his arms and scoffed. “That’s cheatin’,” he said.

“What’s cheatin’ about it?”

“You know where it is. You can shoot it and win straight away. That’s cheatin’.”

“I’ll give you five seconds. After all the others is knocked off that wall, I’ll give you five seconds to find and hit the secret target.”

“That-” Micah stopped himself, chewed his bottom lip, lowered his pointing finger. It was just a game. “All right. You’re on. But I ain’t takin’ this all that seriously, hear?”

“I hear, I hear.” Briggs held up his hands in surrender, then went for his belt.

Micah pulled Stone’s revolver from its holster and span it by the trigger guard. Briggs did the same. He took a second to count the targets on the wall. Ten. There was a chance he could draw with Briggs, then it would be down to the secret target, and he couldn’t afford to miss a single shot if he wanted to strike it. Was it a trick? Were there truly only ten items and the old man was distracting him?

“All right, on my count,” said Briggs, straightening his arm out and curling his fingers around his revolver’s grip.

Micah lifted his left arm and tried to steady the tremble in his hand.

“Three.”

He put his tongue on his bottom lip and dug his top row of teeth into it until it was close to painful.

“Two.”

A bead of sweat tickled his temple as it rolled down to his cheekbone.

“One.”

He squeezed the gun’s grip and closed an eye.

“Fire.”

Micah breathed in.

The plant pot with the crack down the side and a chunk missing. Exploded in a cloud of dust and clay.

The crumpled bucket. With a twang it fell from the wall as if it had jumped.

The empty condensed milk can. Pinged almost musically as it shot up into the air.

Another plant pot, nothing but the jagged base left. Shattered.

A tin, its label torn off and lid still clinging on by a thread. Span around on its axis and rolled over the edge.

Micah lined up for the next one, but Briggs had taken them all. There was nothing left but the last smoking mark where the last can had been.

“Looks like we got a draw! C’mon, boy, find that last one! Your time starts now. Five seconds. Five,” said Briggs in a raised voice, holstering his gun.

Micah didn’t waste time looking at him. He scanned the wall, darted his vision up and down it until he was dizzy.

“Four!”

“There ain’t no other target. There ain’t nothin’ there,” Micah breathed, looking so fast the wall was a blur of gray. Nowhere along the top was anything out of the ordinary. There was only the wall. His heart thudded like hoofs in his chest. The grip under his palm was slick with sweat.

“Three! Switch hands!”

Micah dared to look at Briggs then did as he said automatically, passing the revolver from left hand to right. It felt heavier, alien. It wobbled as he raised it. His arm ached. Jean was going to be mad if he ripped his stitches again.

“Two!”

“There’s nothin’! You’re a cheatin’-” Micah blinked. A rock in the base of the wall was redder than the rest. It was rounder, smoother, red like clay.

“One!”

Clay.

Micah took the shot. The plant pot burst apart. The kickback juddered up his arm to his shoulder and he nearly dropped the gun with the agony of it.

Briggs threw a fist into the air and laughed. He hurried over and shook Micah by the shoulders. “Nice job, son!”

Micah whimpered and nodded and patted one of Briggs’s big arms. He knew his smile was more confused than overjoyed.

“Boy, you really are good at this. Not a shot missed and you got that secret one in time with the other hand. That’s impressive.” Briggs let him go and rested his hands on his hips, breathing in deep as if he’d just finished a long run.

“Why’d you do that?” Micah wheezed, leaning forward and shoving his revolver back into his belt. “Why’d you hide that last one and make me switch hands like that with a second left? You almost made me miss it. And it hurt.”

Briggs turned to face him and Micah looked at his face. It was kind again, the smile sincere and the wrinkles on his forehead all the result of the perpetual and affectionate raising of his brows. “Why did I do all that? Why did I put pressure on you at the last second? Why do you think?”

“Because you wanted to win?”

Briggs sighed. “Because I wanted you to win. Real life doesn’t line up unmoving little targets like those for you to hit one after the next. Targets in real life are hard to find. And sometimes you gotta fight when you’re uncomfortable. When you’re hurt.”

Micah stared, then looked at the gap in the wall where Briggs had hidden the plant pot. There was a space where it had been. He’d never seen it.

“Micah,” said Briggs.

Micah looked back again and saw Briggs holding out his own revolver by the barrel to him.

“You didn’t think you wasn’t gonna get no reward for this challenge, did you?” said Briggs, his face almost turning red from all the smiling he was doing. The start of a laugh was already making his shoulders quiver.

Micah raised a hand, then drew it back. _What was he doing?_ “Mister Briggs, I can’t take that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a stranger. You don’t hardly know me.”

“You’re a person, Micah. A stranger becomes a person when he gives you his name. And sometimes he can become your friend. If he saves your life and proves he’s a good shot in a silly game.”

Micah looked up at Briggs and blinked back the blur in his vision. “I didn’t save-”

“Son, I don’t wanna have to tell you again that me and my boys would be lyin’ out there dead as doornails if Stone and his rustlers had gotten what they wanted and you hadn't done what you done. They almost had us lined up like tin cans goin’ up that trail.”

Micah smiled and felt his eyes burn. “You said life don’t line things up like tin cans.”

“And it didn’t. They all underestimated what you was capable of. You was life’s way of makin’ it harder for Stone. Don’t you forget that.” Briggs pressed the gun into Micah’s hand with both of his own. “Don’t have a son or nephew to pass this down to, and I think you’s as good as any to have it. I’ll get you another holster from town this afternoon. Now you can keep it forever, long as you promise me one thing.”

Micah looked from the revolver to Briggs.

Briggs lowered his head and his voice. “You promise me you and your dad come on back here in winter. When the snow’s fallen. You come back. You will have work to do, I assure you.”

A wind picked up behind Briggs and whipped through them. Micah gripped the gun and held it to his chest. He fixed Briggs with what he hoped was a confident look. “I promise,” he said.

Briggs grinned again and stood straight. “That’s good. Now if you’d be so kind as to gather up all these pieces from our shootin’ gallery and get rid of them. Can’t let old Jeanie know we was havin’ some fun out here. She told me I was to put you to some gentler work.”

“Nothin’ gentler than cleanin’ up, Mister Briggs.”

Briggs gave another of his blustering laughs. Micah was amazed the man had air left in his lungs. “That’s right. Gentler than the Baby Jesus hisself. Get to it.”

As Briggs walked away, Micah took Stone’s revolver in his left hand and compared it side by side with Briggs’s in front of him. Both were double action. Both were heavy.

One had belonged to a good man and the other to a bad one.

Micah spun them by their guards and faced them forward. “You will have work to do,” he said to them in a low tone to mimic Briggs, “I assure you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEAVY HANDED METAPHOR HEAVY HANDED METAPHOR!!!!!!


	18. Talk

Honeybird was staring at him.

Micah watched her huge eyes, blank and black as a starless night, follow his movements. She blinked and huffed. He looked away, returning to frowning at the saddle he’d draped over her stall door. Something told him feeding leather and cleaning up wasn’t what his father had wanted by way of work. He supposed the old man had wanted the real back-breaking stuff for him, the heavy lifting, the hauling, the sort of labor which made a person ache and sweat and bleed. Shit, everything he’d encountered since starting at the ranch had made him ache and sweat and bleed.

He stopped for a moment, sponge still in hand and pressed to the leather. The soap was streaking in bubbles down the side and dripped onto his boots. He leaned an elbow on the door and creaked it back and forth.

The ranch moved on around him. From beyond the stables he could hear the noise of crashing wood and hammering, loud voices, deep laughs, the dog’s barks. Inside, the clack of hoofs each time a horse shifted, the snorts and the whispers of dust and hay. Micah looked at his hands, both pale in the cold. The bandage covering the cuts from the glass was coming undone again. Those cuts should have been his father’s. He should have smashed the tumbler into the old man’s face, not onto the bar counter. Coward.

Someone shuffled into the stables, scuffing their boots on the stone. Micah twisted around to see Connelly, Couzens’s little pal. The boy looked sullen, mad even. Connelly threw empty buckets to the floor. One rolled away.

“Not talking?” Micah asked, turning around properly and crossing his arms.

Connelly looked up, eyebrows meeting in a scowl. “You don’t talk, Bell,” he said, “you lie.”

“Oh, come now, you lie, too, Connelly. You lie down and roll over like a good dog when you’re told. I seen you.”

Connelly stood straighter and his lower lip twitched before he laughed. He strolled over, arms loose, head low, eyes roving as if checking for potential witnesses.

Micah braced himself against the stall door.

“The second you and yours is gone from this place, it’ll be peaceful as the world after the Great Flood, I assures you.” Connelly stared Micah down, which was a feat considering he was a full couple of inches shorter.

“Ain’t no peace nowhere,” Micah said, his voice slow, deliberate, hissing.

Connelly scoffed, then turned his head and spat. Micah smirked at his back as he left.

Micah spent the next five minutes scrubbing the same place on the saddle and was amazed when he stopped and found he still had fingers. Connelly. Couzens. His father. Stone. The man in the woods. They were all of them fools. And wrong.

The saddle wasn’t clean all over by any means; Micah had missed the corners and covered parts, and he’d used unchanged, dirty water, but he was done. He threw it onto the stand, threw the sponge onto the ground and pulled his sleeves down, kicking the stall door shut.

“Fetch me my horse, stable boy,” said a voice. Micah smiled.

“Fetch your own damn nag, rich girl,” he replied.

Maggie pretended to tut and faked a gasp. “How dare you speak to the woman of the house in such a manner!”

Micah turned to look at her. “Why, Jeanie, you look so much younger than I last remember. Unless you’re an impostor, posing as the woman of the house? In which case I’ll have to run you offa the property and call the sheriff.”

“Got me,” said Maggie, pointing. She went to Honeybird, who immediately hooked her head over the stall gate to see her.

“I thought you was gonna honor our agreement about no talkin’ to one another,” he said, scratching Honeybird’s neck.

Maggie ran a finger down her horse’s long face and shrugged. “Nobody’s here,” she said.

“I just saw Connelly. He could be peepin’ for all you know.”

“He’s doing nothing of the sort. He’s out at the wood store. Anyway, even if he has snuck on back to listen, I don’t care. Won’t matter. Thing is, I’m going home early tomorrow and I don’t think we’re gonna get a chance to talk again. Not proper, at least. So. Here I am and here you are.”

Micah hid behind Honeybird’s big face, still raking his fingers down her neck. He ran his palm across her fur and felt the hot blood beneath it, the bunching of the muscles whenever she moved. “What you wanna talk to me for?”

All he could see of Maggie were her fingers tapping Honeybird’s nose. She drummed them as she thought. “Because you’re a different voice, maybe. It’s the same old people every time I come here and I get tired of talking to them. To Couzens and his stupid friends. Sometimes I get tired of talking to Auntie Jeanie and Uncle Roscoe, especially when there’s no news. Don’t tell ‘em that.”

Micah breathed a laugh. “Only if you don’t tell my old man we talked.”

Maggie leaned to one side to give him a look. Micah took a step away. “I see you’re finally wearing that belt Uncle got for you,” she said.

Micah placed a hand on the grip of Stone’s - no, his – revolver. “Your uncle told me to not be afeared of it. And it was bad of me to not wear it right away. He-he actually let me have his gun, too. I left that one in the house until he gets it a holster for this belt.”

“Well, look at that, Mister Micah Bell, gunslinger,” said Maggie with a pretend curtsy.

“I could hold up stages and steal horses and rob people with this, huh?” he replied, stopping himself before he told her his father had only let him borrow his guns when it came down to chasing wagons and stealing. Even after a job well done, any looted weapons would be snatched with an excuse of not being ready or being too clumsy by using the wrong hand. Maybe his father didn’t trust him to not put a bullet in his back. Micah didn’t trust himself not to, either.

Maggie’s smile wobbled. “Well, you could do those things, but why would a person want to?”

Micah wheezed a cough and used Honeybird to block his view of Maggie again. “Oh, no, I mean, I’d never do things like that, but at the end of the day, it’s a weapon, ain’t it? You just called me a gunslinger.”

“I did, but in a joking fashion. Sort of like how a person can’t really get to the moon, no matter what Jules Verne writes.”

“I’da thought you of all people would think gettin' to the moon would be possible,” he said, pulling on Honeybird’s mane.

“I know the difference between a fantasy and the real world, Micah. I might write about dragons but there’s no such thing.”

“Then it’s a shame you didn’t see me breathing fire up on those hills with them rustlers.”

Maggie laughed, sighed. Micah smiled behind Honeybird’s neck, glad of the wall of horse between them to shield it. “Don’t go tomorrow,” he said. Or something made him say.

“I have to. I don’t live here. Have things to go back to. I'll be back next Spring. I know you and your father travel a lot, but despite what my uncle says, there’s always work to be done here. All you need to do is come back one day.” Maggie spoke slow and quiet, pausing between sentences for far too long.

“Your uncle Roscoe, he asked us to come on back in the winter, in a few months. Will you be here then?”

“Spring. I spend Winter in Williamstown. With my parents and my brothers and sisters.”

“Oh.” No way would his father give permission for them to return. They never visited the same place twice. Never _hit_ the same place twice. This was no visit.

Honeybird shook her head and swung it around, turning about in her stall to go to her feed. Micah stood away and kept the distance between them now the horse was gone.

“Why do you want me to stay so badly?” she asked, a hand on her hip.

He raised a hand to the back of his neck and pulled at the skin, felt it roll over the bones. Maggie was expecting an answer. He was expecting an answer himself. The terrifying thudding in his chest was, perhaps, that answer. No. She would laugh at that. Anyone would. Pathetic. Instead, he settled with the next best thing. A good, old-fashioned white lie. “Because you’re a different voice?” Micah closed his eyes for an embarrassed moment when he heard his tone pitch itself up to new heights at the end.

Maggie leaned back, her eyes wide. “Well, that I surely am. I expect you get a little worn out with just your father for company. I certainly would if it was just me and my own father,” she said, making a face.

“It’s, uh... Listen, what time do you go tomorrow?”

“Early. But you’ll be staying another night, so you’ll be there, won’t you?”

Micah leaned against Honeybird’s stall door and massaged a thumb into his bad palm, head down. “I better go back to town for tonight. My old man will be wantin’ to see me tomorrow. I’ll have to bring him his horse, amongst other things. ‘Sides, I think I already overstayed my welcome with Roscoe and Jean as it is.”

“Micah, the point of a welcome is you’re welcome. There ain’t no overstaying it.” Her tone was almost stern.

He looked at Maggie, and again her face was gentle. Sometimes he wished it wasn’t. Sometimes he wished she’d frown, sneer, glower, be anything but kind. She had been angry before, but even then, her expressions had been smooth and without the emotions he’d anticipated.

Maggie brushed her hands together and cleared her throat, flung her hair back and around her shoulders. “So long as you’re there to say goodbye, Mister Bell, gunslinger, I guess it doesn’t matter too much where you sleep tonight,” she said, her hands behind her and her torso leaned forward as she walked backward out of the stables, grinning.

“I’ll be there. I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way,” he said with a wave.

“Just you make sure you don’t kill them to death, quickdraw!” she laughed and set off in a jog outside and back to the farmhouse.

Micah watched her go and then turned to the saddle he’d abandoned with an oddly renewed interest. He rolled up his sleeves again and rinsed the sponge he’d dumped with fresh water and soap. He cleaned the entire thing thoroughly, not forgetting the underneath and anywhere else he’d skipped before. It shone before the end. His arm ached, his fingers were wrinkled with the water, but overall a fair effort had been made by his standards.

He gave the stable doors a long look and then set to work on the next saddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its been a while! i was on vacation but now im back with a vengeance hope u like pleasant conversations and lots of just nice things going on in a nice story (:


	19. Boys' Night Out in Cranberry

Briggs had fixed him up with a new holster for the second revolver and Micah found it balanced the other nicely. It felt better to ride with two guns at his hips. He’d brought his father’s black mare (what was her name? He’d never known) back from the ranch and left her with Colman at the livery along with his own white horse. 

It had taken some persuading on his part to convince the man who owned the saloon to let him stay another night after he didn’t show his face the night before, but one sob story about a terrible accident and a wounded father later, he was in the clear - the room was his again. 

The dark closed in fast. By the time Micah was settled at the bar with drink in hand, the town outside the windows was black, save for the occasional flicker of a swinging lantern’s glow. The usual smoky haze descended and Micah hunched over the counter as if it was a defense against the miasma. This time his father wasn’t further along the bar, guffawing and shouting and grabbing. Good.

He felt eyes on him.

Micah dared to flick his gaze across the counter. Someone was watching. Someone was grinning. With a blink Micah sent his eyes front again, felt the color drain from his face quick as rain down a fence. His fingers twitched when he reached for his glass. An attempt to appear unperturbed by taking a casual drink turned into the glass clattering against his teeth. 

“No daddy today?” said the someone watching and grinning. 

Micah sat back, both hands on the counter, and looked across at the stranger. “I’m fine, thank you, how are you?” he said, struggling to restrain the snap from his voice. 

The man wheezed a laugh. He was drunk. Micah could almost see the heat of the booze rising out of his open mouth. “You was the one your old man was tellin’ us about the other night. Yeah, that was you. The one with... what was it? The messed up stomach? He said you was useless. That’s right,” he said, half-lisping in his stupor. 

“That’s great, I’m real pleased for you,” Micah said through clenched teeth and a tight smile. 

The man snorted. “He said to us he ain’t never contended with a more annoyin’ brat and he was ashamed that you was his blood. Shit, he even said he wondered if you was related, but lookin’ at you now, you is the same as him. To be frank, he was a little pathetic hisself, all boastin’ and whatnot.” 

Micah slapped a hand on the counter and turned on his stool to face the drunk. “You got a point here, mister? I ain’t interested in what one soaked old bastard had to say to another,” he said. 

The bartender, his ever-faithful rag in hand and squeezed to the bottom of a dirty glass, appeared and leaned an elbow on the bar. “Is Mister Jarvis botherin’ you, young man?” he said to Micah. 

“Mister Suffield,” said Jarvis before Micah could speak, “since when have you been servin’ drinks, alcoholic ones, to little children?” 

“Mister Jarvis, you be best to watch your tone and act more polite, unless you wanna be escorted outside by your armpits. Remember last night?” Suffield said with a raised brow. 

“He don’t remember five seconds ago,” said Micah, rolling his eyes and turning away. “It’s fine, let him talk himself to sleep.” 

Suffield lingered, then was called and reluctantly left them to it. 

Jarvis pushed himself back on his stool and stared at him. Micah shifted where he sat and kept his eyes aside. “Them’s some nice shootin’ irons. Too nice for a child to have. Your daddy let you wear them for a night so you can feel like a real man?” Jarvis said, rattling laughs sometimes interrupting his words. 

Micah said nothing. He clicked the knuckles of his fingers with a thumb, one after the other. 

“How about you lend ‘em to me? I don’t think they’d be much use to someone like you. Don’t want a kid hurtin’ itself.” 

Micah stood up, the stool wobbling on a single foot he’d moved so quick. “Look, I ain’t gonna give you my guns and I ain’t gonna give you my conversation, you stupid son of a bitch. Go drown yourself,” he said, pointing at Jarvis right under the nose. He held his finger frozen there for a moment, hand shaking but jaw steady. He gave one last glare, then spun on his heel and went to the saloon’s door. 

He felt Jarvis’s big hand grip him around the upper arm, right where the stitching holding his flesh together was. Micah looked up to see Jarvis’s grin again, then found himself being taken to the threshold as if he had a bad limp and his good friend was helping him along. “Kids shouldn’t be outside without an adult. Let me take ya on home, make sure you get there safely,” said Jarvis. 

“Let go of me right now,” said Micah in a growl. 

Jarvis leaned forward and shot him a look. Micah saw a sudden clarity in Jarvis’s dark eyes, in the way they were fixed on him firm and true instead of rolling and half-shut as they had been before. The man wasn’t half as drunk as he’d displayed. “If you make a scene I will gut you right here. All I want is them guns. Now, you’re comin’ with me and you won’t make no fuss, unnerstand?” 

Jarvis’s hold on his arm was tight. Micah could feel sweat starting to heat up his hairline. It was agony, but imagining Jean’s reaction to finding out he’d torn the stitches again hurt more. His legs were weak. His knees quivered. He pressed his lips together and nodded. There was no time to even glance back to try to catch Suffield’s eye for help. Already Jarvis was marching him outside and down the steps. 

He was directed into an alley a couple of buildings down. The weak lamp at its mouth revealed it was a dead end backing onto the brick of a building opposite. Micah turned around with his hands up. “Mister Jarvis? Let’s talk, all right? What I said before, let’s just forget that, huh?” he tried with a feeble smile. 

In the dark he knew Jarvis was still grinning. Jarvis whistled and two associates of his materialized like devils summoned. “Let’s have that belt now, son. It’s all we want.” 

“Why? Why you want it? Take someone else’s. You got your own, don’t you?” Micah said, fighting to keep his voice from turning shrill, turning desperate. His pulse was jumping in his wrists. 

Jarvis shrugged. “Let’s just say I reckon one o’ those shooters has a sentimental value. Almost like family. You know about family, don’t you, son?” he said, sending one of his boys over with a flex of his fingers. 

Micah backed up as the stranger advanced. “Stay away, you mangy dog, I’m warnin’ you-” 

“Or what? You’ll kill him?” called over Jarvis. His other little friend smirked. 

Micah went for one of his revolvers, but Jarvis’s man was quicker. He took him by the wrist and twisted it, wrenching the gun from its holster with the other hand before Micah could grab for it with his free one. 

After a quick inspection, the gun was thrown to Jarvis, who caught it with a deftness not often seen in drunks. Micah had to hand it to the man, he was a good actor. Jarvis's slimy little friend took Briggs's revolver and tossed it to the other slimy little friend, who gleefully shoved it into his belt.

“Well, would you look at that,” said Jarvis, leaning toward his other man and elbowing him. He ran a finger along the butt of the grip. “R.S. All written pretty like with all them fancy swirls. I knew this was old Stone’s. Second I laid eyes on it hangin’ off blondie’s waist here, knew it was his.” 

Micah tried to pull his arm from the man holding him. “Ain’t Stone’s no more, it’s mine,” he said. 

“Oh, oh, I’m sorry, it’s yours, is it? And how did a little spit of dog shit like you come to possess this gun? You steal this? I'm rememberin' now, your old man said somethin' about you havin' a run in with Stone that day. Did Stone feel bad for you and let you have a try with it?” said Jarvis, still grinning. 

“Hey! You little worm, stop wrigglin’,” snarled the man holding him. Micah was clawing at his hand and fingers, so with his free hand he drove a swift and hefty punch into Micah’s middle. 

Micah went still. He could feel every sharp point of the man’s knuckles where they’d stopped in his gut. He coughed out a breath after an excruciating few seconds stuck without air. The man loosened his grip and let him go to his knees, as if it was some huge effort, some huge mercy. Micah held a hand where he’d been hit, eyes wide and watery. The ground blurred. The dirt was cold under his legs. 

“Roy, you stupid bastard, don’t kill the kid yet,” said Jarvis’s voice. 

“I earned it,” said Micah, forcing his words out between wheezes. 

“What was that?” asked Jarvis. 

“I earned it!” he said, his voice loud but hoarse. He lifted his head and looked at Jarvis, who seemed stunned, blinking but still smiling. 

“You earned it?” asked Jarvis. 

It was Micah’s turn to grin. He huffed out heavy breaths and tilted his head. “I earned it. I bashed his skull in with a rock until he’d bled out all the blood in him. They had to stop me from finishin’ the job. Was gonna kill him,” he said, letting his head hang low again. 

Jarvis drew his head back and ran a hand across his mouth and chin. Micah heard the scratch of his stubble on his palm. “That’s very intrestin’, boy. Now, I ain’t sure if you’re aware of this, but we used to run with ol’ Rayland. Yessir, we was his boys. It's why I recognized that weapon, there.” 

Micah spat. “And he got stopped by, what was that you called me? A spit of shit? Yeah, bet that feels pretty bad. Your fearless leader, no brains and hanged without even knowin’ what two plus two was anymore.” 

Jarvis laughed. Micah had to hide his waning smile. Jarvis was _laughing_. 

“Good!” said Jarvis, standing up, “I said we _used_ to run with him. We left as we found him a little too mild for our tastes, huh, boys? Stone was weak. The man was even weaker than I first thought if all it took to bring him down was one little child. But there ain’t never anythin’ weak about a gun, only the man holdin’ it. So, I’m gonna take this, if you don't mind. And I thank you, I really do. Thank you for tellin’ me your story about how you did it. For givin’ me the facts. I will be sure to remember when I tell others down the line just how easy it was to get rid of Stone myself. I bashed his brains in and left him for dead. That's scary. I like it.” 

Micah listened to Jarvis’s mocking laugh, far worse than his drunken giggling. His heart was a running a mile a second, fast as a bolting horse, trying to smash through his ribs. He could see his pulse still twitching in his arms. “You...” he said, frowning, searching for anything. Sharp spines of fear stabbed through every coherent thought. “You wouldn’t just kill someone like that without lettin’ him defend himself, would you?” 

Jarvis caught his breath and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Why not? Your daddy ain’t here to protect you, and the way he were talkin’ of you, I doubt he’d even try. He’d say go ahead, kill the little runt.” Roy and the nameless slimeball sneered. 

“Seems kinda pathetic of you. Weak. Like Stone. Let’s see if you’re just as easy,” Micah said, trying to keep his shuddering breaths to a minimum. All bastards like Jarvis and Stone knew was fighting. Fighting and fighting better than the other man. He got to his feet and ignored the stabbing pain in his stomach. 

“You’re serious?” Jarvis raised his eyebrows and then laughed again. His buddies laughed with him like hyenas in an echoing cave. 

Micah stretched his fingers on both hands and curled them in to make fists. “Earn it, you little bitch.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa we got a badass in here


	20. Deadeye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just wanna say thank you for all the kudos and comments and hits i've gotten for this thing so far? i really do appreciate each and every one! thanks so much cowpokes!!!!

“ Let me get him,  I’ll beat him till he pisses shit and shits piss, ” said the slime called Roy, already crunching his knuckles with the heel of his other hand.

Jarvis was unbuttoning his shirt cuffs. “Roy, that  ain’t physically possible, and  ain’t nobody  touchin ’ him. You and Tom stand back,” he said.

Micah  breathed hard through his teeth, feeling very much the cornered animal. Jarvis wasn’t like Stone, or even like his father. He was younger, for one, barely scraping his early thirties, tall but sturdy. There was no anger in his face, no twisted snarl, no simmering unhappiness at being wronged or embarrassed or disappointed. In the dark Jarvis was smiling.

“You know, I could just kill you clean,” Jarvis said, spinning Stone’s revolver by a finger, “ y’already look like you’re worn down from some other  batterin ’.”

“I don’t think the good people of Cranberry would appreciate a fella  bein ’ murdered in the street like that. Like he didn’t try to fight,” Micah replied, backing up, a hand behind him clawing to touch the brick of the building blocking his exit.

Jarvis shrugged and shoved the revolver into his belt at the small of his back. “I don’t think the good people of Cranberry would appreciate the  stinkin ’ body of a stranger  rottin ’ in their street. When they find you, they’ll drag you out by your ankles and throw you in the marshes. You 're a nobody.  Them good people won’t care if you tried to fight or not. They’d just want you gone. ”

Micah said nothing. Jarvis was right. Stone had been right. His father.

“How about this, how about I let you take a swing on the house?” Jarvis said, his pals behind him smirking. “I’ll make it easy, look,”  he added , unbuckling his belt and throwing it and his weapons aside. Roy dived in and gathered it up like a good little lackey, scuttling back again with the belt in his arms careful as if it were a child. Stone’s revolver stayed , now tucked into his waistband.

Micah looked at them, at Jarvis in the middle with his arms open, at his thieving friends on either side hissing laughs through their teeth, and pictured all three crucified on Calvary.

A free shot sounded like a trick. Micah pressed his shoulder blades to the brick and leaned his head back. When he breathed and tilted his chin down again, Jarvis was Stone, as Couzens had been Stone, all scraggly-haired and cackling. The laughs of Ray and Tom were the howling gales in the trees.

“Please,” said Micah in a whisper, running a hand up his face and faking a sob into his wrist, “please, don’t kill me. Just take the gun, I don’t care.” He kept one eye uncovered, watching. If Jarvis was going to trick him, he’d trick the bastard right back. He approached, making sure Jarvis was loose in his stance, confident and wandering.

“Aw, c’mon now, after all that about  earnin ’ it? Are you scared?  Was you scared when you was face to face with  ol ’ Stone? Huh?” said Jarvis, mimicking Micah’s already over-the-top impression of a crying kid. Micah was good at that one.

Micah shuffled closer, still breathing hard (he didn’t have to fake the panting) and keeping his body language closed, small, wilted. As soon as he was a comfortable four paces away, he took his hand from his face and it became a fist at his hip. He set off in a run and swiped from behind his back up at  Jarvis’s smug face.

Jarvis stepped aside and his punch hit thin air.

Micah followed his hurried attempt through and ended up with Tom’s rough hands grasping at his shirt at the shoulders, the  slimeball catching him as he stumbled to a stop. Jarvis laughed.

“Oh boy,  Jarv got you good!” Tom said, shoving Micah forward and back into the ring.

“Shut up! He didn’t get me,” Micah said, shaking out his hand.

Jarvis showed off all his teeth in the dark.

Something wet and warm ran down Micah’s fingers.

“He got you good!” said Roy. Tom brayed next to him.

Micah narrowed his eyes at Jarvis. The gleam of a knife flickered in his hand. Micah gaped, then tugged up his shirt sleeve. A neat cut, one and a half inches long, shone in the dim light on the top of his forearm. The moment he looked at it, noticed it, it began to sting. Another bead of blood slipped to streak down to his hand. “You cheated,” he said.

“I cheated?” said Jarvis, circling.

“You cheated. You said you was  gonna let me have a swing on the house!”

“Just ‘coz I let you have a swing don’t mean I  won’t react. How the hell did you manage to live so long  playin ’ by the rules? Oh, does your daddy protect you? Does he do all the  fightin ’ and you stand by with your pinafore up by your mouth all frightened-like?”

“I took down Stone single-handed!” Micah said. He heard his voice break in the middle of his sentence.

“ So you keep  boastin ’! Come on, bash my brains in,  little girl!”

Micah wrapped a hand around his arm and felt the blood squeeze out through the gaps in his fingers. It hurt. It all hurt. The bruises on his face, the knife wound, the cuts on his palm still sealed together by the neckerchief wound about his hand, the place in his side where Couzens had kicked him that first morning. It hurt so much he’d tear those parts of  flesh from his bones and throw them away if he could, if he didn’t know doing just that would hurt a whole lot more. His knees shook. His shoulders felt heavy. His head lolled forward.

“He’s  goin ’,  Jarv ,” said Tom or Roy.

“Ah, Christ. It was just a little cut! Why’s he  faintin ’?” said Jarvis.

Micah focused his gaze on the ground, on the way his boots sank into the dirt, on the earth and the pebbles and the crushed grass. He heard the plip  plip of his blood falling and mingling with it somewhere down there. What if Jarvis killed him? No.  So what if Jarvis killed him? Who’d care if Jarvis killed him? Micah supposed he’d be thrown out by his heels into the marshes. He supposed the  Briggses and Maggie-May would be there joining in. Not good enough to be called a waste.

Someone slapped him.

It snapped his head aside and sent him staggering.

“You’re not  makin ’ me feel like I’m  earnin ’ this here gun, boy,” said Jarvis, leaning in, “hear me?”

I hear you. I hear you just fine.

“You broke ‘ im ,  Jarv .”

They’re just like women! Just like sons! If you break ‘ em , get another! That was what his father had said the other night. About glass. About people.

"I’ll kill you,” said Micah.

Jarvis snorted. “What?” he said through it.

Micah struck Jarvis in the inner elbow first, bent his arm into its natural right angle. The knife had been loose in Jarvis’s grip and flipped into the air to clatter against the wall. The other hand was a fist and Micah drove it as far underneath the base of Jarvis’s sternum as possible a second later with a crack. It wasn’t enough to bring him down, but forced him back a pace. Micah swore he felt the earth tremble with that single, heavy step.

The backhand Jarvis returned sent Micah spinning and he tripped himself, hitting the ground hard.

Jarvis barked a laugh and Micah spat dirt and blood. Before he could wipe his mouth, Jarvis had hauled him up by the scruff and stood him back up. He gave him a push, rebalanced him, and backed away. Micah was pleased to see Jarvis was testing the arm he’d hit and obviously resisting the urge to nurse his chest.

“All right!” said Jarvis, “now that’s a little better. Not great, not even good, but better. You  wanna try again?”

Micah ran a cuff under his lower lip and it came away bloody and wet. As he stood there, almost bent double, his shoulders rising and dropping with clumsy breaths, every pain pulling hard, he thought. Was the gun worth it? Was Stone’s ugly legacy worth it? A fresh glob of blood ran from his nose and flowed warm over his mouth.

Jarvis could walk away. Jarvis could walk away with the gun and his story and that would be that, but he didn’t. Instead he was standing before him, dukes up, grin crooked, enjoying himself. How could he beat a man who took sport in a fight? Who saw one more hit as one more thing to laugh at?

Let him laugh. Let him have his sport.

Micah blinked and shook his head, his matted hair, heavy with black dirt, flicking muck. Someone behind him, Roy or Tom, gave him a shove between the shoulders, clearly impatient for the entertainment to continue. “Get  movin ’,” a muffled voice had said at the back of his neck. He knew the sound of words spoken through a cigarette.

He shuffled forward, one arm limp at his side. Jarvis hadn’t even had the decency to slash the other one to balance the pain, but, then again, it still left him with one, good arm. “What if...” he said. His voice cracked, “what if I called for help? Right now, what if I just hollered  bloody murder?”

Jarvis smiled and stretched an arm across his chest. “Then we run from the law. And we bring you with us. We take ourselves a trip to the marshes and we finish this. We finish what you started, kid. Don’t spoil the fun now. Don’t spoil the fun.”

Micah began to forget how many times he’d been sent to the ground, how many times he landed badly, how many times he’d been decked across the jaw. Blood was pouring. Roy and Tom were laughing. Despite it, despite the agony shooting bone-deep, Micah protected one thing throughout the ordeal. His good arm. If he could avoid using it to strike out at Jarvis,  avoid  crushing it under his weight when he fell, keep it away from Jarvis’s grasp, he could win. Or he thought he could.

He hit the dirt again. Jarvis had practically thrown him. He rolled over onto his side to curl up into a ball of pain. The shivering was embarrassing. Tom and Roy’s laughs were his father’s laugh, the harsh, drunken one from the previous night, full of spit and spite.

After a minute of uncomfortable respite on the cold alley floor, Micah moved and balanced his upper body on a shaking elbow, his bad arm feeling just about ready to fall off. Blood was running all over, he could feel it on his face, his neck, his arm, his hands. It was the hills above the ranch again. It was Stone again.

“Come on, kid! That can’t be all! You only gotten a couple o’ hits on me! I barely got a bruise! Hey, have I earned that  shootin ’ iron yet?” Jarvis laughed.

Micah’s elbow gave way and he hit the dirt again. He pressed his forehead to the ground, breathed, dust rising up into his face and sticking to the blood drying on his skin. His vision came and went, one moment black and the other bright and sparking with white dots. Was he dying? Was Jarvis killing him? Was it worth worrying about?

He crawled forward. His empty holsters dragged and caught on stones, the tears on his shirt stretched, his knees barely lifted. It hurt. It hurt too much to be possible. A biblical hurt of such an enormity he almost couldn’t feel anything . It just wouldn’t go away. He crept along on his stomach, pulled himself forward with trembling hands until he reached the boots of Tom or Roy.

He held up a hand. _Bite._

Cigarette ash floated down from the dark above and landed on his knuckles.

“Aw, Roy, look at that, he wants your help up!” Tom said.

“ Ain’t gettin ' it,” Roy said. He picked up his boot and kicked Micah’s hand aside.

It stung. It was his bad hand, his bad arm. The old neckerchief bandage unravelled and fresh blood sprayed. Micah could have fainted. His eyes rolled back. He closed them and growled through his teeth. He raised his hand again. It shook. Blood dripped. _Bite._ __

Micah heard Tom laugh and Roy sneer. Jarvis, as far as he could tell, hadn’t moved, but his laughter joined Tom’s. They thought it was funny. Good. _Bite, you son of a bitch._

“Go on, Roy, help the poor mite up. Get him up and turn him around so we can go for  round two. I  ain’t done  earnin ’,” said Jarvis behind him. Micah heard the deep crunch of neck bones being cracked.

Roy shuffled his feet and Micah saw his cigarette drop. Its orange glow faded. He steeled himself. Prepared. When Roy clasped his hand around his aching palm, he made sure to bite his tongue to stop himself crying out. The pain in his middle didn’t matter. The cut on his arm didn’t matter. The bruises on his face didn’t matter. What mattered was, _Roy had bitten_.

The moment he was back on his feet and face to face with Roy, Micah brought his good arm into play. A solid uppercut to Roy’s weak chin sent the man’s head snapping back almost vertical. He then forced his bad arm to snatch  Briggs’s revolver and passed it from his bad hand to his good one.

Roy was still clutching his mouth and staggering. Tom was wrestling for his own revolver, glancing up and down from boy to gun and back again.

Micah took a breath and lifted Briggs’s revolver. He aimed at Jarvis, who was halfway to  Stone’s. He pulled back the hammer with a steady thumb. Jarvis span his revolver through his fingers and stretched out his arm, hammer already clicked.

Through the bloody locks in his eyes, Micah saw it. He saw the smoke rise from the chamber. He saw the kickback send Jarvis’s hand up and back. He saw the dim light lick a line up the barrel. He saw Jarvis’s eyebrows rise and wrinkle his shining forehead. He saw his own hand, unmoving in front of him. He saw his fingers squeeze the trigger and the grip. He saw the cylinder turn. He saw the steam of his breath. He saw blood.

Jarvis sniffed and hummed a laugh once the bang of gunfire stopped bounding up the alley walls.

Micah inhaled sharply and trusted his good arm to stay up as his other limbs started to falter. Tears wobbled on the tips of his eyelashes.

Jarvis brushed his shoulder. “Was that it?” he said, snorting.

Micah heard Roy and Tom moving around behind him, but neither of them spoke, or, more importantly, fired. He frowned and kept the revolver trained on Jarvis. A tiny tremor rattled it. His eyes were fixed on Jarvis’s shoulder. The idiot hadn’t noticed the growing dark patch spreading across the material.

Jarvis slumped. Then went to his knees, Stone’s revolver dropped and forgotten.

Micah dared to turn around and pointed  Briggs’s revolver at Tom and Roy. “Drop ‘ em !” he said to the pair, limping to Jarvis. He switched his aim between Jarvis and his fools. As quick as his bad arm allowed, Micah bent to scoop up Stone’s revolver and then kept both on Jarvis, parallel to the same precision of railway tracks. “I said drop the guns, boys, or I kill this son of a bitch,” he said, ignoring the stumble in his voice.

Jarvis was growling a laugh through his teeth.

Roy and Tom stared, glanced to each other, then raised their own guns.

“You drop yours, you little beast,” said Tom.

Micah fought to stop his scowl from disappearing, from giving way to the expression he could feel his face trying to make. His hands quivered.

“You cheated,” said Jarvis through a heaving breath.

Micah looked down at him, at the way he pressed his hand to his shoulder as if tenderly touching it. A gunshot wound was nothing to him. It was like the kiss of a butterfly’s wing to him. Or so he liked to show.

“I didn’t cheat,” Micah wheezed back, “I fought a man and I won. Like you said. Just ‘coz I let you have a swing... don’t mean I won’t react. You didn't earn shit off me this time.”

Jarvis stood. Micah was forced to hop back to get out of his way, as broad and big as he was. And that was the mistake. Jarvis was bearing down on him.

Shouts from the street beyond the alley’s threshold stopped Jarvis from throttling Micah and Micah from shooting Jarvis point blank in the gut, the both of them paused in tableau as they listened.

“Law,” said Tom through his teeth. Both he and Roy turned tail only to run straight into deputies, the still quiet of the alley turning to pandemonium.

“Get the others!” said one deputy over the fuss Roy and Tom kicked up.

Micah moved. Every muscle in him protested it, but he forced himself forward. He holstered his revolvers and shook Jarvis’s hand from his collar without a thought. He forced his way through the deputies’ grabbing and clawing and made it out onto the street with a few extra bruises. His ribs burned. His skull felt as if it had been smashed and then glued back together with pieces missing. Something was ringing in his ears, some low-pitched drone which seemed to vibrate right through the bone.

Someone slapped a hand on his back and squeezed his shirt. He gasped and twisted around, escaping, running.

“Get that kid!” someone shouted back in the alley.

The someone who’d nearly caught him was chasing. Micah heard the man’s boots, heard the huffing of his breath as he closed in. Micah stumbled. Whatever energy he had left in him was leaving with each step.

He barely noticed he’d been tackled to the ground. He and the deputy who’d crashed into him both slid through the dirt and his bad arm was folded against his back before they came to a stop. He supposed he ought to have howled or sworn or struggled, but instead he lay still and let stones dig into the side of his face.

The deputy was up on his feet again and had a heel pressed into his flank. Micah felt him rip the revolvers from their holsters. “Don’t think I need to clap this one in irons, Sheriff,” Micah heard him say through the low tone still buzzing in his hearing, “think he’s done for the night.”

“That’s good,” said an older voice. There was the sound of hands dusting down a coat. “All right. Those three back there, I want them in cells right now.”

“And this one?”

Micah frowned.  It made his eyebrows ache.

“That one?” The older voice said. This time there was the sound of fingers on stubbled skin. “That one I  wanna talk to. Then he gets a cell.”

Hands grasped him by the shoulder and rolled him over. He was then hauled unceremoniously up into an unsteady stoop. The deputy had to hold a hand against him to keep him from toppling.

“Can you walk, son?” The older voice belonged to a hangdog sheriff.

Micah raised heavy eyes to look at him when fingers were snapped under his blood-crusted nose. His attention returned to the ground. He said nothing. Exhaustion was in charge now.

“Can you talk?” asked the sheriff.

“Are you an American?” asked the deputy. Micah saw in his fuzzy vision the old man  smack the deputy’s shoulder.

The old sheriff leaned in closer, his  gray mustache buffeted by the breeze of a sigh. Micah let him take hold of his hair and tilt his head aside for a better look. “Bring him in. Keep him away from them other three. Seems like they don’t like each other much. If he falls, sling him over your shoulder.”

The deputy ran a hand down his neck. “Ah, Christ, I  ain’t throwing  somethin ’ in that state onto my shoulder. It’d stain. What if he,  y’know ... _airs the paunch?_ ”

“Then he does so and you get your missus to do your laundry for once. Get  movin ’. Want these low-downs  offa this good street and where they belong.”

The sheriff led in front. The deputy drove a finger into Micah’s side to get him walking, then took a hard grip of his shoulder and guided him to follow.

“I don’t know if you heard all that,” said the deputy through the corner of his mouth in a low tone, “but my wife does the laundry on the regular just like  everone else. It’s just sometimes I might neglect to put some of my shirts into the basket, therefore  needin ’ to keep  wearin ’ them for work.  Ain’t my fault,  y’unnerstand . In fact, I consider myself to be  doin ’ her a kindness, on account of she has less laundry to wash and dry.”

Micah looked away and would have rolled his eyes if he didn’t wonder if they’d roll right out of their sockets. The further they walked, the more reluctant his steps. He started to resist the deputy’s hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re what?”

Micah closed his eyes. The deputy was deaf as well as dim. Talking was an effort and the dozy bastard was wearing him out. His voice was a thin whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I done back there, I don’t know them people, I  ain’t with them. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t make no matter to me if you’re sorry or not. It’s him you  gotta convince.”

Micah opened his eyes, blinked away the shameful blurring the tears caused, and watched the sheriff's back as he walked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DIDNT EDIT THIS ILL EDIT IT LATER!!!


	21. What Needs Doing

“What’s your name?” 

The Cranberry jail was a poky little place. Micah felt as if he had to tuck in his elbows for fear they’d brush against the walls. Deputy Dim-Witted was downstairs slinging Jarvis and his boys into the cells. Micah could hear them, Dim-Witted and all of the other deputies, struggling to keep the trio controlled. Shouts and clangs and thumps and snarls drifted up the narrow stairwell. He pictured Roy or Tom clinging to the bars like reluctant cats faced with baths digging their claws into door frames. 

“I asked you your name.” 

Micah looked up. The iron cuffs around his wrists clanged when he jumped. A safety measure, Dim-Witted had said, but for whom he didn’t mention. 

The sheriff raised a bushy eyebrow, expectant. His desk was by the door and it was clear of clutter of any kind. A single lantern flickered by the window. It cast huge, jagged shadows across the floor. 

“Tom Sawyer,” Micah said. He would’ve leaned aside to spit if he wasn’t concerned he’d keel over completely and never get up again. 

“What’s your age, Mister Sawyer?” asked the sheriff, scrawling on a sheet of paper without a blink of his eye. 

“Forty five. Hundred.” Micah smirked, then stopped when it started to smart. 

“Well, that’s decided. We’ll hang you in the mornin’,” said the old man, closing the leather cover of his book. He picked up his hat by its crown and went to stand, pushing his chair backward. 

Micah rose to his feet, the back of his knee almost sending his chair to the floorboards. “You can’t do that,” he said. The chains of his cuffs rattled. 

“Oh, no?” said the sheriff. 

“I ain’t done no crime.” Micah fought to keep his head high, but his neck was tired of holding it up. 

The sheriff picked a thread from his hat and with slender fingers brushed dust from a groove. He hung it on the back of his chair and took a seat again. “Then I suggest, young man, that you quit actin’ like you have. Sit down.” 

Micah sniffed and lowered himself back into his chair, his hands clasped together in his lap, mostly because he couldn’t do much else with them. 

The sheriff leaned back, folded his arms and brought his chin to his chest. “Now. Let’s try this again. Your name, if you please,” he asked. His voice was steady. 

“Bell.” 

“Is that your second name or are you a French lady in disguise?” 

Micah narrowed his eyes. They were narrowed enough under the swell of bruises, but he managed to turn them to black slits. “First name’s Micah. Micah Bell.” 

The sheriff smiled. “There now, that wasn’t so tough. And how old are you? Think hard. You got this one wrong last time, too.” 

Micah gave a rough sigh and looked away to the stairs leading to the cells. “Seventeen. But nearly eighteen.” 

“How nearly?” 

“Ten months.” 

The sheriff laughed. It sounded like gravel under wheels. “Well, Micah Bell, aged nearly eighteen, my name is Roadnight. I will not disclose my age, if you don’t mind.” 

The noise of another ruckus came from down the stairs. Something shattered. Someone swore. Micah’s shoulders stiffened and he closed his eyes, lost his breath. 

“Where are you from, Bell?” asked Roadnight. 

Micah kept his eyes closed. “About.” 

“About? Don’t know a town named ‘About.’ What county is it in?” Roadnight’s tone never changed. It remained deadpan with a droplet of amused. 

Micah felt his throat close up, heat up. He held the cuffs between his knees to stop them from clinking. “Mister Sheriff Road... Mister Sheriff. I didn’t do anythin’-” 

“Son, I asked you where you was from. We’ll get to the rest.” 

Micah sat back. He could smell the drying blood on his skin and clothes, could feel it, flaky in some places and sticky elsewhere, all over whatever flesh showed. It was on his neck, his hands, in his hair. He knew he’d swallowed plenty, as much good as it did being back in his system. Maybe he’d see it again later. He eased open his eyes and looked down at his hands, wondered where the neckerchief he’d used as a bandage for his palm had gone. The cuts from the glass stared back as tiny, red eyes. He tried to remember his father’s lie. Where had he said they’d traveled through? That first evening at the ranch, his old man had said they’d been looking for work, had roamed all the way from... 

“Darke County,” he said finally, closing his fingers of his bad hand and glancing up at Roadnight. 

“Appropriate,” Roadnight said. “And are you here with anyone?” 

“My father.” 

Roadnight leaned over his desk and tapped the end of his ink pen on the cover of his ledger. “Your father? And what is his name?” 

“Same as mine.” 

“Same as yours. Well. He must be proud of you, to grant you his name like that. Maybe not tonight, however. Maybe not tonight.” Roadnight flipped open his book again and wrote. He paused and looked up. Micah shifted on his seat. “What is your father’s age?” Roadnight asked. 

“Why’d you wanna know that?” 

Roadnight smiled again. Each time he did, the wrinkles around his eyes bunched like spider webs. “Only for the records, y’understand. There has been a disturbance in this good town tonight, and I like to make sure all is accounted for, make sure I know everythin’.” 

Micah shrugged, then strained his jaw against the pain pulling on his shoulders. “I don’t rightly know his age, to tell truth. Older than me. Not as old as you. Maybe forty. Maybe a little less than that. He don’t care so much for birthdays.” 

“Not like you, huh? Shall we call it thirty eight? That’s not too insultin’, is it?” Roadnight was already writing. 

Micah shrugged, nodded, felt his head tip to one side. “I don’t wanna answer questions no more,” he said in a murmur. 

Roadnight flipped a page. “And I didn’t wanna have to ask them tonight, but here we are.” 

Micah caught Roadnight’s look. It was a look which dared him to complain again. 

When his expression relaxed back into its usual stern pinch, Roadnight twirled the ink pen and then pointed the nib at Micah. “Let me tell you a little about this here town,” he said. He cleared his throat, tossed the pen onto his ledger and ran a finger along his mustache, his dark eyes on Micah. “We ain’t an old town. Fifty years or so. I been here nearly all my life. Like to think this is a modern-type place, welcomin’ to all. Now, I ain’t sure if you’re familiar with the followin’, but a lotta towns out there are enforcin’ no weapons rules, and so do we after a fashion. We don’t ask that weapons be checked, but we do ask that weapons not be fired in certain areas. Places where folks live. Old people, women, littluns, you know. Now, these...” 

Micah sat forward as Roadnight leaned down and dipped a hand under his desk. He brought up his belt and his revolvers. They were dropped onto the desk with a noisy clatter. 

“That's mine,” said Micah, reaching his good hand out to grab at one of the holsters. Roadnight slid it away from his clawing fingers. 

“Yours? Oh, son. Neither of these is yours. This one?” Roadnight brought Stone’s revolver into the light and held it up. “This one belongs to a man I’ve hunted. To a man I’ve hanged. And this one...” He reached for Briggs’s revolver and placed it on top of his book. “This one belongs to a man I call friend. Now, what are you doin’ with these?” 

Micah growled. “I’m tired of tellin’ people they’s mine. I earned ‘em. To hell with you and to hell with your cute little town, those guns are mine. Give ‘em back.” 

“Are you sayin’ you stole from Roscoe Briggs? That day he brung Stone and one of his parasites in here? Are you a Stone boy like them down in them cells? Did Stone give you his revolver and name you his heir and successor? Then did you pilfer this gun from Briggs durin’ the fight out on his land? Was you arguin’ with Jarvis about ownership of this gun? Boy, I will hang you this night without a crowd to jeer at you for what you done!” 

As Roadnight went on, as his questions became angry, as his tone lifted and his expression twisted, Micah could do nothing but let his mouth hang ajar and his eyes widen as far as the bruises let them. He shot up to standing, blinked through the dizziness, and almost leaped onto the desk. “Stop! Stop. I’ll tell you.” 

Roadnight sat back and scratched his chin, his other hand out, inviting Micah to speak. 

Micah heard his voice undulate, but he’d already begun talking, he’d already been defeated. “I ain’t no Stone boy. I was the one who stopped that son of a bitc—uh, stopped him from killin’ people that day. Didn’t Briggs tell you what I done? Who I was? I work for him. He let me have that gun, and then let me have his own. Jarvis, he... he forced me to shoot, he was gonna take that gun there offa me, he was stealin’ my property. So, I... I protected my property, sir. I’m sorry it disturbed your perfect, peaceful town but he was gonna kill me for it. They’re always... tryin’ to kill me. And I have to do what needs doin’, sir. And if... if them fellas down in them cells...” Micah paused. His voice vanished for a moment. He slouched where he stood and raised his bound hands to cover his eyes. His tone was fast and high and muffled when he next spoke. He knew why; there was wet under his fingers. With a snarl he tore his hands away from his face and stared at Roadnight, knowing his face was red and his eyes bloodshot. “If they say I’m one of ‘em, they’re lyin’. They’re no good rotten bastards, sir, and... and maybe that’s what I am, too. But I ain’t them. I ain’t them.” Micah was out of oxygen by the time he was done. He stood there, his legs barely holding him, and fixed Roadnight with what he prayed was a determined glower. A town called Cranberry wasn’t going to see him swing. No town would. 

Roadnight, still lounging and pressing his fingers to his lower lip, raised his eyebrows. He got to his feet the same moment Dim-Witted slumped up the stairs. 

“Sheriff, we got ‘em wrangled into their cages,” he said, his fellow deputies joining him and grumbling to each other. One was nursing his jaw. 

“That’s good. Deputy Varley, this is Micah Bell. He talks,” said Roadnight, sweeping a hand between them. 

“Oh. Do you talk American?” Varley asked, frowning. 

“Better than you, you dumb f-” 

“Help me fix a cell for this young man, would you, Varley? He’s stayin’ the night. You know the one.” 

Micah stepped back and nearly fell over the chair. “Hey, now, come on, I already told you what happened. You gotta let me go, please, I can’t be here. I won’t be here. Not with them,” he said, still moving away and hoping he was nearing the door. 

Varley took him by the bad arm and Micah couldn’t stop a yelp. 

“I understand your disappointment, young man, I really do,” said Roadnight, standing and crossing the room. 

Micah wriggled in Varley’s grip, hissing through his teeth and still trying to force himself to the door, the heels of his boots sliding useless over the floor. His cuffed hands couldn’t reach high enough to grab at the deputy. 

Roadnight clicked his tongue. “Put your back into it, Varley, boy’s made of nothin’, hurry it up,” he said. Rather than descending to the cells, however, Roadnight pulled a set of keys from his back pocket and picked through them, leading Micah and his dim captor through a door and a short hallway. “This was my idea, y’know,” Roadnight said, “we use it for seperatin’ the clever ones who might escape, and sometimes for simply splittin’ up gangs who might cause upsets. I suppose if you wasn’t our special guest for the night I’da put Jarvis here. But I think that bullet in his shoulder will keep him sleepy tonight.” Roadnight turned to give Micah a grin before opening a second door. 

It revealed a small room and a single cell set into the back wall. A lantern lit a corner. Micah slowed his worming around and accidentally let Varley seize his chance to push him forward bodily through the open cell door. Before he could even turn to face the bars, the cell door clanged shut and the keys clicked. “What are you doin’?” he asked, glaring over his shoulder through hair stiff with dried blood. 

“Doin’ what needs doin’, isn’t that what you said?” Roadnight replied, patting Varley on the shoulder as he left. 

“I told you. I ain’t them. I shouldn’t be here. I got...” Something turned his stomach the wrong way. His fingers shook. “I got somewhere I need to be tomorrow.” 

Roadnight said nothing. Instead he beckoned Micah to walk to the bars with a finger. “Hands up,” he said. 

Micah drew close and showed his wrists. He watched Roadnight unlock the cuffs then yank them from him, pulling them back through the bars. It would have been easy to go for the old man then, but how far could he have gotten? He should have done it for the hell of it, given him a scratch or a scare. His father would have. 

“This, believe it or not, is for your own good.” 

Micah rolled his eyes. 

“That’s fine, don’t believe it. But I’ll tell you this. I’m gonna speak with Briggs. Tonight. Right now. See if we can get this sorted before dawn. If he validates your story, I’ll letcha go. And if there are unsavory sorts stalking the streets for you and your guns, like you say, perhaps best place for you is here. I’ll get Varley to bring you a bucket a water so you can get that blood off. Spend some time cooling your head with it, too, if you wouldn’t mind. And I am sorry.” 

Micah only quarter-listened to the sheriff’s excuses until he apologized. He looked up and paused massaging his wrists. 

“I am sorry I had to get a little mean back there to make you talk. You was unmotivated and I thought you looked the type who’d react to accusations. It worked, but I don’t like bein’ like that. Helps keep Varley and them boys o’ mine in line, though, if they think I’m a cruel despot. In reality, I'm a benevolent despot.” Roadnight gave a smile, a peace-offering, then turned to go. 

“Wait. Sheriff Road,” Micah said, reminded by his writhing stomach that Maggie was expecting him early. He curled his hands around the bars and let the cold metal soothe the old cuts on his palm. 

Roadnight stopped and turned, the cuffs folded and tucked under his arm. 

“I have somewhere I need to be tomorrow morning. When Mister Briggs says I’m tellin’ the truth and you can let me go, promise me it’ll be before the sun comes up?” 

He could see Roadnight frowning in thought in the dark. The sheriff’s eyes glimmered as he cast his gaze aside. 

“Please.” 

Roadnight nodded, then disappeared, closing the door behind him. 

Micah let his hands slide down the bars and slowly shuffled to the bed. It was a hard mattress stuffed with straw, and he was glad the dark disguised most of the stains as shadows. He sat down, left without even conversation to distract from the agony still storming in him. He ended up on his front on the bed, head bent back so he could stare at the dull glimmer of the lantern’s light. An unnatural blackness closed in over his vision before his eyelids could even twitch, and he passed out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> casey from tim and eric awesome show great job voice: put em in jail put em in jaaaail


	22. Dark Water

During the night Varley arrived with a bucket of water. 

Micah didn’t hear the cell door creak open, nor did he hear Varley’s boots or even the clang and slosh of the bucket being dropped onto the floor and the water leaping out of it. He only stirred when Varley gave him a shove on the shoulder. 

“Sheriff told me to bring this, make you clean up, get presentable and all that. C’mon,” Varley said. 

Micah didn’t move. He lay on his side, limbs unmoving where he’d abandoned them, breathed. Being back meant pain again, meant thoughts again. He kept his eyes shut. 

“Boy, I ain’t doin’ this for you, c’mon, geddup.” 

“What time is it?” he asked. It was still dark besides the dim lantern sitting on the desk outside the cell. 

“Speak up,” said Varley. 

Micah swore he’d spoken at a regular volume. “What time is it? Is it light out? It morning?” 

“Mornin’? Son, it ain’t even tomorrow yet. Or maybe it is. I don’t rightly care. Just wash up.” 

He saw Varley reaching a hand down through the black. Micah lashed out and slapped the deputy’s away from him, sitting up fast and blinking through the speckles in his vision. “Don’t touch me,” he said when his snarl fell flat. 

“Well, shit, fightin’ everone tonight, are we? Better behave if you want outta here at daybreak,” said Varley. Micah could almost hear the sound of his eyebrows rising to meet his hairline. Varley snorted, and for a horrible second Micah thought he was about to feel the warm wet of spit land on his face, even winced and tilted his face away in anticipation, but Varley simply sniffed and left the cell. The door clunked behind him. The lock rattled. 

His eyes felt full of sand. His limbs were heavy as logs. He sat on the edge of the bunk and trembled. The shakes ran from his knees into his stomach, which swirled inside his middle like a rag being dragged around in a tin washtub. His mouth stayed shut for fear of throwing up. It took all the strength left in him to get to his feet, and even then, it took a handful of feeble tries before he got it right. 

The bucket he had to feel for with the toe of his boot. The light in the lantern outside the cell was poor, and his night vision was worse. Once his boot hit the pail, Micah went to his knees and leaned over it, or leaned over where he thought it was. He blindly reached out to find the edges, and when he found them, he clung on like it was the only thing anchoring him to the earth. 

The water was down there somewhere. He slid a hand in, let his fingers soak until he couldn’t feel them. His dry hand he reached to the back of his head. He squeezed a fistful of hair at the base and held his breath. He imagined his father holding him there, crushing him there, pushing him under, tainting the water with evil Bell blood. And how it would run. How it would spread. 

He thought about the Sheriff. About the deputy. About Stone and Jarvis and the strange man in the woods. About their judgement. Their assumptions. 

Micah took his numb hand from the water and ran it down his face. Every bump and welt and cut stung. He clawed his hand down his skin harder. If the blood washed away, he couldn’t tell. Maybe it was still there. Maybe it would remain there forever. Maybe it was inked under his skin. Maybe that was just fine. 

When the rough patches of dried, sticky blood on his face (the parts he could feel and find) were gone, Micah slumped back onto his ankles and left his hands lying in his lap. He felt like a man shot and left to die. Was the pain in chest his ribs snapping with every breath? Was that ongoing ache in his side one of his organs giving up, bursting, seeping and oozing around the rest? Was that burning in his gut the fires of Hell trying to turn him inside out? Perhaps, he thought with his hands clasped together on his thighs, Hell wasn’t a place a person visited, but something a person became, something that unfurled, took over, gave a person strength. Micah smirked. No amount of strength in the world or the one down below would help. 

He stared down at the water, at where the lantern’s light glimmered across the surface. He couldn’t see his own face, but sometimes a black shape passed over the flame’s reflection. 

_Why don’t you do it?_

Micah glanced up. 

A figure, gnarled, hunched, dark, unfolded itself in the corner of the room. It grew arms and legs and crossed them, leaned against the wall. There was no face. 

A chill froze the backs of Micah’s arms. His heart was speeding, lurching forwards. 

“Do what?” he said. His voice was a whisper. His hands, still knitted together, quivered. 

_You know what._

Micah looked down at the pail, at the darkness of his own shadow leaning over it. 

_It’d be easy,_ said his father’s voice, _just breathe in and don’t breathe out again. Let the water do the rest._

“Why should I?” 

_Because you always do what I say._

Micah snorted and rose to his feet. His muscles complained, but he made it to standing and went to rest his forehead on one of the cell’s bars. “I don’t always do what you say,” he said. 

_Oh, oh, my. No?_ A laugh. A hiss. 

“No.” 

The figure reached a hand of smoke to rub where its chin might have been. _I am sorry,_ said his father’s voice, _I meant to say, you do what I say unless it involves you_ _bein ’ a coward._

Micah blinked, slow and heavy. “I ain’t that. I ain’t that,” he said. 

_You is_ _that._ The voice was louder now, seemed bigger, seemed to fill the room. It sounded like his father was speaking over himself, his voice doubled, tripled. The lantern’s flame flickered. 

Micah’s grip on the bars increased. He could feel sweat under his palms heat the metal. One of his legs slipped and he slid down the bars until he pulled himself back up again. He looked the shadow dead in the eye. Or where its eyes might have been. “I try. I try to do what you ask when you ask it. Why can’t you see that? I’m always tryin’. But what I try, it ain’t never right, is it? It ain’t never right to you. That’s why I don’t do some of those things you say. Because even if I did ‘em, it wouldn’t be what you wanted. So, I do what I say now.” 

_What you say?_ The voice boomed. It might have been a laugh if Micah had been able to focus on it over the volume. _What you say is lies, and boy, do you crow._

Micah pressed his forehead to the bar until it sent a dull ache into his skull. “Go away,” he said into the bar, eyes closed, “go away.” He opened an eye to check it was still there. 

It was hanging in the air like a dead man swinging from gallows, dark and blank as night. It started to drift forward. 

Micah gasped and pushed himself away from the bars. His heel knocked the pail of water. It tipped, hung in the air on its edge, then spilled and rolled away, clattering. “I always... I always try to do what you say. I try not to be a coward for you, I do. I’m tryin’, goddammit! Why can’t you see that? Time and time again I been tryin’ to prove myself to you, what is it I’m doin’ wrong?” 

The shape moved closer. _Everything._

Micah breathed. He clutched a clammy hand around his throat. “You don’t mean that. Please, you don’t.” His voice was a squeak, caught somewhere in his neck. 

_I ain’t never been proud of you. Not once. Not even the times I said I was._

Micah backed up until his legs hit the bunk. He sat down without realizing he had and covered his mouth with a hand. 

The shadow advanced, grew, but he let it. It was going to reach him. 

_You ain’t of use to no-one. Nobody wants you. Do you want yourself? Truly?_

“Yes,” Micah said into his hand. He stared at the shine of the water on the floor. 

_Oh, you do lie well, don’t you?_

Micah looked up and took his hand from his face. He dreaded to think what his expression would look like in the light. “Why are you sayin’ these things?” he asked. 

The shape, shimmering and struggling to keep its form as it filled the room, grinned without a mouth. The candle in the lantern shone brilliant for a moment. Something rose from the shadow’s head. At first Micah thought it would be the horns of the Devil himself stretching to the ceiling, but instead something else manifested, something tall, squared, a brim. A top hat. The figure closed in.

_Because I know you._

The room turned black. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOOKY INTERLUDE!!!!!!!


	23. Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still lovin and appreciating yall sticking with this story for all this time! love all of yall! thanks for the hits and the kudos and the really lovely comments!!

Micah woke with an involuntary kick of his leg and an embarrassing snort. He was on his back on the bunk, mouth dry, eyes aching, hands held crossed over his chest as if he was about to reach to his neck and throttle himself. Maybe he had been halfway to exactly that when he’d started awake. When he sat up his shirt was stuck to his shoulders with sweat. He twisted his good arm around to pick the material off his skin and remembered what agony was. 

It was still dark. The lantern on the table had burned out during the night and the cell had no window. Micah reckoned on it being only used for overnight guests, for those with fragile reputations who wished to avoid gawping and the gossip which usually followed. 

The cell’s outer door swung open and Varley strode in fighting a ring of keys. Micah sat up straight, as much as it hurt, then got to his feet, his first few steps more of a shuffle. 

“Nah, you stand back there, boy,” said Varley without looking up, pointing a hand at him. Micah rolled his eyes. Varley continued to wage war against the keys until he found the right one, shaking the rest in his joy, victory cackle and all. 

“What time is it?” Micah asked, trying to lean to one side to see if light streamed through the hall Varley had come from. 

“Time for your skinny ass to leave us peaceable folks be,” said Varley as he turned the key in the lock and yanked open the cell’s barred door. 

“I asked you what time it was,” Micah said, closing an eye and pressing his thumb into the eyelid to coax some useful vision out of it. 

Varley stamped a foot and swung his head down with a sigh. “And I toldya. Time to go.” 

“Go where? The gallows?” 

Varley scoffed. “You think we be hangin’ whelps like you for squabblin’ in the streets? Think we string folks up for drunken quarrels? We’da hunged half the town if that were the case. Now get. Only hangin’ offense round here is keepin’ the sheriff waitin’.” 

Micah stood forward and felt his insides turn around in him like snakes. “Wait. I asked for a wake-up call from your sheriff. I specifically asked him for one. For you to get me up before daylight,” he said. 

“Oh, so you didn’t notice me shakin’ you an hour ago? Two hours ago?” Varley replied. 

“What?” 

Varley shrugged. “Found you half on the floor all sprawled out like you was one of them fur rugs with the animal heads still on ‘em. I had to pick you up and sling you back onto that cot myself, and you slept through the whole thing. We tried to wake ya up but you had clearly changed your mind on that risin’ before the sun idea.” 

“No, no, I wouldn’t...” Micah frowned. The night before was a blur. A dark blur. A blur with a voice. 

Varley cleared his throat and spun the ring of keys by a forefinger. “I ain’t got all day, son, get movin’.” 

Micah slipped out of the cell, a hand holding his bad arm to his side, and traipsed behind Varley. 

Roadnight was at his desk when they emerged from the hall into the main office. He had a hand on a familiar belt and its holsters, which lay on top of his paperwork. The rest of the sheriff was slouched easy-going in his chair. Daylight lit his face and Micah got his first good look at the old man. He was younger than he’d thought he’d been the previous night; a strong fifty years, gray but nowhere close to balding, the kind of man who kissed his wife goodnight and kissed her again in the morning. Varley went to lurk at the top of the flight of stairs leading down to the cells. 

“Young Micah Bell,” he said, sitting up, drumming his fingers on the leather of a holster. 

Micah’s eyes darted to the window, and they felt so gritty he swore he heard them scrape like sand on rocks. The sun had already risen, but it was pale outside, white, misty. There could still be time. 

“You look rested,” said Roadnight. 

Micah stared at him, head tilted up, and knew he really looked a laughable state. It showed in the amusement on Roadnight’s face. He could feel his hair was standing on end, mostly with blood he’d missed when washing, and was aware the window gave the bruises and swellings on his face deep shadows. “Gee, I sure feel rested, sir,” he said through his teeth. Those hurt, too. 

Roadnight huffed a laugh through his mustache. “I can see you are itchin’ to get outta here, so I’ll be quick,” he said. 

“I ‘ppreciate that, Sheriff,” Micah said, eyes back on the window. 

“Hmm,” said Roadnight. He stood and stretched an arm out in front of him. “I spoke to Roscoe. Mister Briggs. Now, see, I don’t like disturbin’ folks in the night. It scares ‘em. Makes ‘em get to thinkin’ somethin’ terrible has happened. I reckon the whole house awoke to see what commotion I’d brought. Even their niece, whom I regret got a tad upset at the whole thing.” 

“Mag-uh, Margaret-May. You upset her?” Micah said, his voice rough enough to sound like a growl. 

“I believe it was the bein’ sent back to bed that did the upsettin’.” 

Micah turned his face away, vaguely aware of his shoulders dropping. He wanted to ask if she’d been told, if the sheriff had revealed in front of her why he was standing in her family’s doorway in the middle of the night. He didn’t dare. 

Roadnight went on, his hands behind his back now. “Your employer, Roscoe, has vouched for you. He told me you are indeed workin’ for him on his land, both you and your father, the latter I believe is currently in town here recoverin’ from an accident. Roscoe informed me them guns there in those holsters, that they are yours. One you got for your services to protectin’ the ranch from Rayland Stone, and the other for bein’ a good shot from Roscoe hisself. As for whether ol’ Jarvis and his boys were tryin’ to take ‘em offa you, well, all I can do about that is _speckerlate_ , but goin’ by what my good friend Roscoe said, I believe it was Jarvis and his friends who was in the wrong, am I right?” 

“Goes without sayin’, Sheriff,” Micah said, addressing the floorboards under Roadnight’s boots. 

“All right, then,” said Roadnight, giving the brim of his hat a knowing tap. He went to his desk and scooped up the belt and holsters. 

Micah drew closer and watched as Roadnight inspected the bundle in his hands. It took a lot of effort to keep himself from snatching it from him. He had places to be, Maggie to meet. 

“These are yours,” said Roadnight, offering the belt. He moved it back when Micah reached out for it, head tilted, eyebrow quirked. “Now, if I give you these back, you better behave out there. Remember what I said. No drawin’ weapons in the community. People don’t like that. I don’t like that. And no more fightin’, Christ. I cannot abide wastin’ nights on boys like you no more.” 

Micah took the belt in his arms when Roadnight dumped it into them, whether they were waiting or not. He hurried to put it around his waist, but stopped when he felt Roadnight grasp his good arm. 

“I mean it,” Roadnight said, “I don’t wanna see you in here again.” 

Micah lowered his head and looked up at the sheriff from under his swollen brows, lower eyelids caught in twitches. “And I mean it. You won’t,” he said. 

Roadnight took his hand away and Micah hurried to the door, still buckling his belt. He stopped before he left, hand on the handle, and rounded on Varley, who was leaning on the stairwell banister with his arms and ankles crossed. “What time is it?” Micah asked, pointing at him. The snakes in his guts still swarmed around each other. 

Varley blinked and tipped his torso forward, fumbling for his pocket watch. “It’s, uh, a little before eight. Almost eight,” he said. 

“All right, okay, I got time. I’ll be seein’ you boys,” he said, waving a salute when he realized he’d no hat to tilt. 

Roadnight called after him, or, more likely, called him a name, but Micah had already stepped outside with the full intention of avoiding further conversation. He allowed himself a small smile, mostly because it would hurt to try a wider one, and made his way to Colman’s livery. 

He had time. It was still early. But what was early for Maggie? Surely, she didn’t rise with the ranch? She did no work in the fields or the stables. She was visiting. She was a guest. Jeanie would let her sleep in until at least nine because Jeanie was nice like that. Plus, he was certain where she lived, Williamstown or some such place, wasn’t far, so her journey wouldn’t need to begin at sunup. Maggie could take it easy. Maybe she hadn’t even packed yet. He imagined her rushing about in her room gathering things she didn’t want to leave behind until Spring; her books, her brushes, the curling rags for those ringlets of hers... Yes. She was packing. Jeanie was urging her to hurry up, but Maggie was still packing. He had time. 

The mist hung low and seemed to crackle as he moved through it, as if thunderclouds had sunk to earth and lightning still sparked in their folds. Micah walked faster, his brisk stroll turning to a slow limp when something pulled in his side. He made it through the pale town to Colman’s, and the moment he saw the man by the doors, rushed to him, breathing hard. “Mister Colman,” he said between hauls of air, “I’m gonna be needin’ my horse. Now.” 

Colman frowned and ran a hand through thinning hair, leaving a black smear on his forehead. “Sure, sure, all right,” he said, “go on ahead inside if you’re in such a rush. Don’t upset my guests, now.” 

Micah brushed past Colman and headed to the doors, hitting them with the flat of his hands, swinging them open as bodily as possible. A horse snorted and tossed its head when he jogged past the stalls. He went straight to the white one he was only just learning to call his own and snatched up the reigns, pulling open the stall doors at the same time. 

As he hauled the horse down past the others, Micah stopped. His horse bumped his shoulder and stomped in place on the tiled walkway. 

His father’s black mare. 

Micah squeezed the reigns in his hand until the leather squeaked. He had time. 

“Mister Colman,” he said as he exited the livery, two horses in tow. 

Colman paused, a bag of feed in both hands and eyebrows raised. The black smudge on his forehead creased into his wrinkles. 

“Mister Colman, I’m takin’ my father’s horse, too.” 

Colman used his shin to kick the feed up a tad higher and adjusted his grip on it. “You’ll be bringin’ ‘em both back later, I imagine?” 

“Sure,” Micah replied, tugging on the mare’s bridle. 

He leaped onto his horse and decided to kick him into a half-canter through the center of town with the mare following. Townsfolk shouted, skipped out of the way, stared. He shouted back at them to move. 

Micah dismounted before the horse had the chance to stop in front of the doctor’s office. Hitting the ground was rough, but the burn of the pain kept him moving, kept him breathing. He threw the reigns of both horses over the hitching rail and rushed to the door. He had time. 

The old doctor was at the counter with his back to the door and window until Micah burst in. He spun around gasping and almost dropped the bottles in his hand. 

“Doc,” Micah said, clutching a hand to his chest where it felt too tight, “please, tell my father I’ve-” 

“Tell me yourself.” 

Micah stood up straight and saw his father standing in the doorway which led to the back of the office. He had his coat hooked over his arm. The bandage around his head had been changed and seemed smaller. 

“Well? What was it you was gonna tell me, son?” 

The doctor adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat, wisely busying himself with his shelves and stock. 

“I was... I was gonna tell...” Micah twisted his handful of shirt harder, drove his knuckles into his sternum. He could feel his pulse underneath it, his heart trying to touch his fingers through the bone. He breathed and thought about Maggie. About the time he was wasting. “I wanted to tell you I’ve hitched your horse outside and I’m ridin’ on ahead to the ranch,” he said. 

His father approached. Micah pursed his lips and jutted out a clenched jaw. 

“You been fightin’?” his father asked. 

“What?” 

“You been fightin’?” his father said again, reaching out a hand. 

Micah backed away. “No, no, this is the same as before, I swear,” he said, hoping his voice didn’t sound too hasty, too clipped, too much like a lie. 

“You ain’t goin’ nowhere. Not to that ranch. Not outta that door. Not till you tell me what you been doin’ while I was here.” 

Micah widened his eyes, then flashed his gaze to the doctor. To the witness. His father saw it. 

“But, I... suppose, it can wait until I meet you up at the ranch. Very soon,” he said through his teeth. 

“Yeah. Yeah, that sounds... fine. I’m goin’. I’ll see you,” said Micah, stepping away until the door handle stabbed him in the small of the back. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll follow you out. I’ll see to my horse, I think,” his father said, moving toward him. 

“You don’t have to do that, she’s fine.” 

His father’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll _see_. To my _horse._ ” 

Micah shot the doctor a desperate look and left the office, stumbling down the stairs as fast as he could. He had only managed to stick a foot in his horse’s stirrup when his father swept down upon him outside like the mist had swept into the town. 

“Don’t you dare ever try to walk away from me again, Micah,” said his father. 

Micah flinched at the use of his name. Somehow it was worse than boy or son. “Or what?” he said. It took a second. He blinked, then stared when he realized what he’d said, stunned. He started to shake his head. 

“Pardon me?” his father asked. 

Micah stared for a moment longer, mouth ajar, eyes round, sweat warming his face. His horse was rocking and he fought to stop himself from hopping on one foot. He clung onto the saddle and used his shoulder to shield himself from most of his father’s figure. “Or... or what? Or what? What are you gonna do? Huh? You gonna hit me again? Is that the best you can do? You-you're a coward. You’re a coward. You’re scared of me.” Micah wheezed a laugh. The saddle strained as he pulled on it. 

His father glowered, then smiled. It was the smile of a lizard, thin and devious. “You skedaddle on up to the ranch,” he said, his tone low and calm, “and I’ll catch you up. Go on, run along, now. Don’t wanna be late, and time’s wearin’ on.” 

Time. Maggie. 

Micah decided to worry about his father’s sudden, eerie kindness later and instead jumped into the saddle, fought back the urge to double over when it sent a searing agony into his core, and kicked his horse in the side to get him moving. 

The race to the ranch was a hard one. The horse was flighty, unhappy about being forced along and steered clumsily to dodge riders ambling along the road. The mist was thicker in the country and vision was poor ahead. Micah could barely see the oncoming road. It was like running into a white dark. The deadly quiet amplified the thundering of the horse’s hoofs and he kicked up mud and stones as he powered forward. Micah whipped the reigns against his neck, saw the foam flecks flying from his mouth, heard his snorting and huffing and grunting from deep within his chest. And still he urged the animal to go faster. He had time. If the horse was swift enough, he had time. 

He felt the horse rise and fall over the crest of the hill at the top of the long track leading down to the ranch. With a renewed need for necessary cruelty, Micah dug his heels into the horse’s hips as hard as they would go. A minute. Just a minute more of being thrown around the saddle and upsetting all the old injuries. He had time. 

The ranch buildings loomed out of the mist like great ships from a sea fog. Micah yanked back on the horse’s reigns and, now at the end of his tether, the beast reared with a wail and kicking forelegs. Micah lost his balance, his knees too weak to hold on, and fell backward over the horse’s rear. He landed on his shoulders with a yelp, but was up again in a second, choking on coughs. New bruises were nothing, because there was a horse and carriage standing before the farmhouse porch. 

Micah waved the horse away, knowing a ranch hand would find him wandering and take him to the stable. He loped to the carriage and rested against it to catch his breath, then tried to flatten windswept hair. His face he couldn’t fix, even without the bruises, but that was a small thing. Maggie didn’t mind that. _Maggie_. 

He peered into the carriage. It was empty. It was actually a rough old thing which had no doubt seen several journeys. The sides were coated in wide arcs of mud splashes, the wheels were strong but worn, the footplate was scuffed from the scrapes and kicks. The horse waiting patient as a saint was a mature and plain animal. Something in the back of his mind recognized it, but plenty of horses looked the same. 

Micah ran a hand along the back of his neck where it was wet with sweat and smiled. Who cared what the old cart looked like? Maggie hadn’t left yet. She was still packing in that funny way he’d imagined, being geed along by Jeanie, throwing things into cases and into the air when she couldn’t find room for them. He laughed. It wasn’t a loud laugh, or even a good one, but it was a laugh. 

Boots on gravel crunched nearby, growing louder. Micah spun about and waited. That would be Maggie. It would be Maggie and she’d have three cases balanced in her arms, one on top of another. The middle case would wobble and the top case would fall, and he’d rush over to catch it. She’d stop and stare and then laugh and he’d laugh and- 

“Bell.” 

Smile still on, Micah turned his head to see Connelly emerge from the mist. The smile twitched and started to fall. “Connelly?” he said, frowning. 

“What’re you doin’?” Connelly asked. “Almighty, look at your face.” 

The smile became a smirk, as it always did. “I can’t look at my own face, you fool.” 

“Then you’re the only lucky one.” 

“Shut up, Connelly, I ain’t here to talk to you.” 

“Oh, no?” Connelly shoved his hands into his pockets, “then who you here to talk to?” 

Micah went quiet. How could he explain it to an idiot like Connelly and trust him to understand his meaning? 

It turned out he didn’t need to speak a word. Connelly’s face lit up and he grinned, eyes wide, cheeks bunched up under his eyes. “Oh, you’re here to see... oh, Bell. Oh, this is too good.” 

Micah felt the hot rush of shame and embarrassment wrap around his neck. But what did Connelly know? Connelly didn’t care about Maggie. He was continuing the teasing Couzens had started, echoing someone who hurled insults with only slightly better accuracy. He was nothing. 

“Like I said, I ain’t here to talk to you, so get yourself gone,” Micah said, turning to walk around to the other side of the carriage to the porch steps. 

“You do know she left two hours ago, don’t you?” 

Micah stopped. His heart was a lead weight. He wasn’t sure if it was either beating so fast he couldn’t feel it, or it had ceased completely. He tilted his head aside. “ _Liar_ ,” he said. He had to say it. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t know what to do. The mist pressed down on his shoulders like hands trying to put him onto his knees. 

Connelly’s voice had the texture of slime. “Oh, I ain’t you, Bell. I don’t lie.” 

Micah spun and stalked back to Connelly, a hand raised and a finger pointing from ranch hand and carriage. “You’re a goddamn liar, Connelly. If she’s gone, then who’s cart is this?” 

“It’s ours.” 

Micah glanced up and saw Jean standing beside the horse. She wore a wide-brimmed bonnet and a smart dress under a jacket. Looped over an arm was a basket. 

“It’s our cart, Micah,” she said in a timid voice, “it’s for trips into Cranberry. I’m going for groceries and a few other larger supplies ready for the winter. I tend to go every week if I can. We store this cart in one of the outbuildings so it’s outta the way for the days we don’t need it.” 

Micah looked to Connelly, who crossed his arms and kept his grin going. 

“I’ll... I’ll get Roscoe,” Jean said, trotting around the horse and into the house. 

Micah felt his shoulders sag. His body seemed about to collapse, and he would have let it if Connelly hadn’t been standing there thoroughly enjoying himself. 

“Tell me, Bell, what was you expectin’?” he asked, clicking his fingers. 

Micah raised his eyes slowly. “What you mean?” His voice was as tired as what was left inside him. 

“With Maggie-May. What was you expectin’? You knew her for what, a few days? What was you thinkin’ would happen? That you’d be friends?” 

“No,” Micah said. He stared at the ground and tried to bore a hole through it with his gaze. His arms shook. His knees shook. The base of his stomach shook. 

“Thinkin’ you’d run off and get _married?_ ” Connelly said with a mocking tone, his words rising and falling as if he was talking to an infant. Maybe he was. 

“No.” Micah could barely hear himself, but was sure it sounded like a squeak being wrung out like a cloth. 

“Nothin’ comes of knowin’ a person for a few days. People just don’t care about other people after a few days. Not even nice ones like Maggie-May. She didn’t care about you. You was stupid to get it into your head that she would even try to. She’s known me an’ Couzens years and ain’t no carin’ come from that. She was toleratin’ you simply because you was there and she was there. That’s all.” 

Micah closed his shivering fingers into his palm and turned his hand into a hard fist at his side. He half-expected to hear the skin creak like leather or tear like thin material he was balling it with such a fury. At the same moment he thought about snapping it forward and crushing Connelly’s nose back into his skull, a deep voice rose from the swirling white of the mist. 

“Micah,” said Briggs, striding forward, one hand on his jacket lapel and his head low, “a word, if you would.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAD YA GOIN FOR A MINUTE THERE HUH!!!! heuheuehuheue
> 
> also 'speckerlate' is 'speculate' i'm doing that obnoxious phonetic spelling thing to create some kinda cowboy world feelin idk fgdjglkfj


	24. Shadows in the Mist

Briggs started to head to the paddock beside the stables. Micah trailed behind him and watched the rise and fall of his shoulders as he walked in front. He briefly looked aside to spot a ranch hand pulling along his white horse in the exact picture he’d imagined; both of them struggling and grumbling. 

He wanted to ask at which point did Maggie tap him on the shoulder and laugh at how funny a joke it all was. Would it be when he and Briggs reached the paddock’s fence? When they were halfway through the serious talk? When it was all over, as a closing grand finale to the whole hilarious little trick? Rather than offer an answer, the last ebb of some sensible part of him reminded him to call Maggie by her full name in front of her uncle and then vanished. 

Briggs folded his arms and leaned on the fence at the paddock’s perimeter when he reached it. A post groaned and bowed under his weight. Micah stopped a few paces back, hands at his sides, a thumb idly running over the raised cuts on his palm. 

“I imagine you know why I asked to speak with you,” Briggs said. He looked out across the field. Micah followed his gaze and saw it was as if the world was gone. The mist grew dense and cold. 

“Yes,” said Micah. He dug a thumbnail into an old cut. 

“Would you...” Briggs said, still staring out into the bleak white, “would you tell me what happened?” 

Micah stayed quiet. If it had been Maggie asking, he knew he’d spill the whole story, gory details and all. 

Briggs huffed a sigh which bordered restrained irritation. “Micah, I just need to know if I lied to the Sheriff last night when I said you would never start no fights in the streets or cause a major nuisance of yourself. That you... that you wouldn’t shoot a man unless it was self defense.” 

Micah breathed. “The Sheriff told me Margaret-May was upset. How... how much did she find out?” 

“I ain’t talkin’ about my niece, I’m talkin’ about you. But if you must know, she was a little rattled and also a little tired. I sent her to bed before she heard the worst of it. However, I have a suspicion she listened with her door open a tad. I didn’t hear it close until after the Sheriff left.” 

Micah nodded despite knowing Briggs wouldn’t see it. Maggie had heard. Maggie had heard how he’d fought with men in the streets, disturbed the peace, shot one of them, gotten arrested, slung into jail. He hated to think it, but perhaps it was better she had left early, as terribly as he missed her. 

“Will you answer my question?” 

Micah blinked and jolted his head away and down at Briggs’s tone. There was a desperation in it, a need to be proved wrong. It was almost solemn. He rolled a shoulder and went to the fence, balanced his elbows on it, his hands propping up his chin. “You don’t need to worry ‘bout that,” he said. 

“Is that the answer?” asked Briggs. The irritation in his voice was back. 

Micah shrugged. He hunched his shoulders up to his ears and kept them there, slumping against the fence, a boot kicking at the dirt. 

“You know,” Briggs added, turning to face him, “Jeanie sometimes writes to our Maggie-May. Tells her this ‘n that about what’s goin’ on around here, about the animals, about how her horse is gettin' along.” 

“What’s your point?” Micah closed his eyes when he heard himself almost snap. He gave the lowest fence slat a quick kick. 

“My point is, maybe Jeanie could write to Maggie-May and tell her what really happened that night ‘tween you and them Stone boys. You tell me what went on and I’ll tell Jeanie. Then Maggie-May won’t be so upset. And I can even ask Jeanie to write that you’re sorry you missed seein’ her off because of bein’ late.” 

Micah kicked the fence again. “Why you so int’rested in what happened? What’s done is done, and there ain’t no takin’ that back. Ain’t your business.” 

Briggs gave the fence such a hard smack with the heel of his hand Micah felt the reverberations travel along the wood and into his arm. The posts lining the paddock quivered. Micah looked up through the limp hair hanging in his eyes to see Briggs was frowning. 

“It is my business, Micah Bell. It is absolutely my business. You work for me. You been workin’ for me for a half a week or more. When you go into town, you is representing me. Me and this entire ranch and all the good work what goes on here, and, in case you forgot, that’s my business. I don’t really ‘ppreciate hearin’ in the dead of night that one of my employees is sittin’ in jail for fightin’ in town. For even shootin’ someone. The thoughts I had. The thoughts Jeanie had. That Maggie-May had. So, you tell me what happened. Clear your name with me, and I’ll clear it with Maggie-May for you. Please.” 

Micah watched Briggs’s face closely. The frown, he was certain, wasn’t one of anger, but concern. Micah reached a hand up to his own face and brushed it up from jaw to forehead, let his palm roll over the little lumps and bumps he’d collected the night before. He pressed his wrist to his cheek and felt the pulse in the vein twitch. “Don’t tell my father,” he said in a whisper. 

Briggs breathed out through his parted lips. “I won’t,” he said, “but I will if you don’t tell him yourself.” 

Micah glanced away to hide his scowl. He watched the mist move with the breeze across the track leading back to the farmhouse. It rolled like waves. He felt it thread fingers through his hair. “It happened the way the Sheriff said. Got jumped in the saloon by this... this drunken bastar-fool. Only he wasn’t drunk. He was pretendin’. And like an idiot I fell for it, let him march me outside ‘coz he wanted...” Micah frowned and a hand rose to rest on the grip of Stone’s revolver. “He wanted Stone’s shootin’ iron. I guess so he could pretend he was the one who got Stone, not some... stupid kid. Only I said no. I said no and he went for me. I had to shoot him to stop him from killin’ me. He was killin’ me. And he did it happily. Like I was nothin’. Like I wasn’t even a person...” 

Briggs’s heavy hand weighed down a shoulder and Micah looked at him, only half-aware his frown was still fixed on. “I am sorry,” said Briggs, “I am sorry that happened. Shouldn’ta been that way.” 

Micah ignored the apology. “Will she write it? Jean, I mean. Will she write what I said and tell Margaret-May I’m sorry for not bein’ around to say goodbye?” he asked, wishing Briggs would take his hand from him. It was making his eyes feel tight in their sockets and his heartbeat flighty. He couldn’t be weak. Not now. Not in front of Briggs. 

Briggs smiled and gave Micah’s shoulder a pat. “Seein’ as that means a great deal to you, I shall. Maybe she can get started after lunch today, whilst it’s still, unfortunately, fresh in our minds.” 

“I didn’t mean to make you an’ the ranch look bad, Mister Briggs,” Micah replied, standing up as straight as his height would let him. 

Briggs squeezed his shoulder and then let him go. “To tell the truth, it wasn’t just me and my ranch’s reputation I was scared for,” he said in a low, knowing voice. 

Micah caught onto what he meant, which surprised him considering how much of a pummelling his skull had gone through the past week. “Why? You only known me for a few days, like you said. Why would you be scared for anythin’ but the ranch?” Micah cleared his throat when he realized what he’d asked. He should have left well enough alone, accepted Briggs’s concern. 

“Micah, I have employed you. As I expect you to work well for me, you need to expect the same of your employer. Meanin’, I gotta make sure you is safe and happy, too. Same for all the boys here.” 

“But I fought with those folks in the streets. I caused a ruckus in the town. I-I got jailed for it, for ruinin’ the tranquilness of the place.” 

“Tranquillity.” 

“That’s what I said.” 

Briggs laughed through a sigh and crossed his arms over his broad chest and stood back, leaning with one leg behind him. “You remember the rat?” 

Micah closed his mouth before further words escaped and swallowed them. “I do,” he said, unsure if he was going to get a fresh telling-off for it. 

“It’s the same thing with them boys in town last night. Like the rat, you coulda let it get away, let them boys get away with hurtin’ you, or you coulda attacked it first, shoot it, like you did. Like you did with them boys. You did what your instincts said, Micah. I would never ask no more of you than that.” Briggs beamed. 

Micah stared. Did nothing anger Roscoe Briggs? He smiled back, or tried to, as there were cuts and dings on his lip threatening to burst open if stretched too far. 

Over Briggs’s shoulder and above the farmhouse on the crest of hill stood a dark figure on a dark horse. 

A break in the mist drifting like a window across the shadows framed them for a moment. Just a moment. But a moment was long enough. 

His father. 

Briggs turned to see what he was looking at, and must have caught a glimpse. 

Micah sensed his legs automatically setting off into a jog before Briggs hooked a hand around his upper arm and held him. “No, no, no,” he said, “don’t you go rushin’ over. You make your old man wait. You make your own way over and you take all the time you want.” 

Micah gasped and already started to try to work Briggs’s fingers from his shirt. “Mister Briggs, he’ll kill me if I dawdle,” he said, trying to struggle and remain polite at the same time. 

“He won’t,” said Briggs. 

“You don’t know him,” Micah replied, shaking his head. 

Briggs loosened his grip and let Micah slip away. “I suppose I don’t,” he said, “but you walk to him. Don’t run.” 

Micah turned around and began to walk backwards away from Briggs, trying his best to work out what Briggs’s hard expression meant. Was it more concern? Concerned himself, he faced front and attempted to fix his hair as he walked, then licked a thumb and ran it under both eyes in the hope it would help keep the tiredness at bay. 

The mist was still a solid, pale nothing in front of him. The ground appeared clearly only six feet or so before his eyes as he moved. 

Something loomed out of the nothing. 

His father’s coarse and red-knuckled hands clawed for him. Micah had no time to leap back. The old man’s fingers dug into his shoulders in a way most unlike how gently Briggs’s had. “Micah,” he said, he rasped. 

Micah couldn’t speak. His heart blocked his throat. 

“Micah,” said his father again, “who hurt you? Who did that to you?” 

“What?” 

His father had his head bowed and he was leaning his weight on him, causing his knees to bend. Micah was glad to be staring at thinning hair and not his pointed face. “When you ran away from Cranberry like that, I felt nothin’ but worry. You looked all busted up and you didn’t give me no answers when I asked. I was concerned,” said his father. 

_Concerned_. Micah darted his eyes aside, then placed his hands on top of his father’s. “Y-you didn’t gotta be worried. I’m all right. I just... I had a run-in. Had a run-in with some Stone leftovers. I showed ‘em I wasn’t nobody to be tangled with. Just like with their boss. I showed ‘em. I-I shot one of ‘em. In the shoulder, I didn’t... I didn’t kill him, but he won’t be botherin’ me again I bet you,” Micah said with a weak laugh at the end of his last sentence, all the while trying to push his father’s hands from his shoulders. 

His father looked up, and Micah paused. The old man really did look as worried as he’d claimed. His brow was creased and his eyebrows were tilted all the wrong way, curving in the opposite direction than that which they were clearly used to. Even his eyes, wide and pale, seemed glassy. “You did?” he said in a relieved wheeze, “oh, that’s good. I’m proud of you. Son, I am proud of you.” 

_I ain’t_ _never been proud of you. Not once. Not even the times I said I was._ A voice spoke somewhere at the back of Micah’s mind. A voice which wasn’t his own. 

His father stood up and took his hands away from him, wiped them down on his shirt in an almost nervous, absent-minded way. He smiled. “Why don’t... yes, why don’t we get to work? We is both late here as it is. Ol’ Mister Briggs there, he’s a-watchin'. How about we fix some more of that roof, hmm?” 

Micah watched his father stroll with a jaunty lightness to his step back into the mist. He stopped before he was consumed completely by it and twisted about on his heel when he must have noticed he wasn’t being followed. “What’s keepin’ you, son? You all right?” he asked. 

Micah stepped forward. He hid his wringing hands behind his back. “Why?” 

His father swayed on the spot, still smiling. “Why what?” 

“Why are you proud of me?” Micah dared. He dared to ask the question, and now he dared himself to listen to the snide, sarcastic, cruel, malicious answer. 

“Why, because I love you, Micah,” said his father, sweet smile widening. “Hey, cheer up, the day is ours. Let’s get goin’.”

Micah watched his father disappear into the mist and dropped his hands to his sides, mouth ajar. With a shake of his head he hurried forward into the pale and wondered if closing his eyes as he walked would bring him better vision, as what he'd just seen couldn't have been real, let alone what he had heard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aint it nice that dad's nice now??? that's good character development!! :)))))


	25. No Work and All Play

Something about being on the roof again, crouched and hunched against the chill of the mist, made Micah feel as if he was on an island adrift, untethered. The unending whiteness still surrounded them like cold walls. He looked aside and saw the half-silhouette of his father knelt nearby. Without permission, the hammer in his hand slipped and hit the tiles with a thud.

His father paused and glanced up. “You all right, son? Is it that arm?”

“What?” Micah asked, narrowing his eyes and straining to see his old man through the dull  gray light.

“The arm. One that got stabbed. It  playin ’ up?”

Micah crawled his fingers up to the old wound. It still ached, but he’d gotten used to the feeling. He almost smirked. It wasn’t an old wound at all. Not even a week had passed since they’d shown their ugly blonde mugs and caused Briggs and his ranch all manner of inconveniences. “No,” he said, frowning, fixing his sleeve, “no, it’s fine.”

His father hummed and carried on with his work.

“Are... are you all right?” Micah asked, averting his eyes the second he saw his father tilt his head at him. He never asked that question. Children didn’t ask their parents if they were all right. It was a thought which simply didn’t cross their minds – parents were always all right. That was how it went.

“What’s that?” said his father.

“I asked if you  was all right.” Micah tried not to choke on the back of his own tongue. It felt wrong to ask it. It felt dangerous.

His father laughed and touched at the dressing still wound around his head. He pulled at where the end of the strip had been tucked in. “It’s fresh up here, huh?” he said, getting to his feet and resting his hands on his hips. “Yeah. A man can really breathe up here.”

Micah tried to follow his father’s line of sight, but there was nothing to spot but the pale mist. He couldn’t even see the other ranch buildings. Every now and again there came the sound of unseen work; the clatter of wagons, the scraping of hoofs on stone, sometimes a voice carrying upward. Micah took in his father’s slim figure as he looked out across the white world beyond the roof. Had the accident a couple of days ago knocked him nice? Was his mind gone? No. He had been his usual self at the doctor’s office when he’d first visited. What was it? What was driving him to pleasantness?

“Hey, how about you join me here?” said his father.

Micah felt his boot slip under him and his heartbeat slip with it. He stayed where he was, stared wide-eyed.

His father waved him over. “C’mon, get over here. Bring what you got there, let’s fix up this part.”

The hammer was heavy in Micah’s hand when he picked it up. He lifted it and weighed it, wondered how much of a swing he’d need to really crack his father’s skull.

His father went to a knee to prepare for working on the roof’s corner and Micah stood over him, hammer in hand, his father’s bent head displaying the crown so perfectly. The hammer would go straight through bone, maybe get stuck in the brains. Perhaps he’d have to brace his father’s body with a boot and rip the hammer out, send an arc of blood flying into the mist.

“Wake up, son,” said his father, raising his eyebrows at him.

Micah dropped the smile which curled at the side of his mouth and crouched beside his father. Rather than swinging the hammer’s claw into his eye, he helped him with the work. The thoughts of bludgeoning the old man remained in his mind as a comfort.

“I think ‘tween the both of us we could have this roof done by the afternoon,” said his father with a smile and a nod. The bandages were dark with sweat at his forehead. He reached up to adjust them.

“Yeah...” Micah said, stepping back and tapping the heavy head of the hammer against his knee until he sensed it starting to bruise. “Pa, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, son,” said his father without a hesitation, without the old impatience.

“What’re we  doin ’ here?”

His father turned to face him, back to standing, brushing off his hands. “Whatever do you mean?” he asked.

Micah held out his free hand and swept it around him to indicate the ranch below the mist. “Here. What’re we  doin ’ here?”

“Here at the Briggs ranch?”

Micah closed his eyes and rolled them under the lids. “You said we was here for a job,” he replied, eyes open and fixed on his father’s bemused face, “you said. On the first day we worked. You said we was here for a job. Is this the job?”

His father turned his back. “It’s _a_ job.”

“ _A_ job?”

“Yes.”

Micah threw the hammer underarm across the roof. It bounded and clunked and slid to a stop near his father’s boot. “This... this  ain’t us. This  ain’t what we do. I just  wanna know what we’re  doin ’ here. Just tell me it’s for money or-or it’s just a change needed from what we normally do. I  ain’t sayin ’ I’m uncomfortable with it, I just need to know there’s a point,” said Micah, trying his utmost to keep his voice from rising. If he shouted, his father might shout louder.

His father didn’t speak. Instead he bent low and picked up the hammer by its throat and started to walk across the roof to where Micah stood. Micah resisted the urge to back away, mostly because the roof ended abruptly only five or so paces behind him.

The hammer swung back and forth in his father’s hand as he moved. Micah raised a hand in surrender, as if the presence of the flat of his palm would keep the hammer from smashing through it. He craned his head away and half-closed an eye, only to open it fully when his father stopped in front of him. His father touched the hammer to Micah’s hand. Micah closed his fingers over it and took it.

“We is here for you, Micah,” he said.

The hammer wobbled in Micah’s hold. He wheezed back a gasp.

“You like it here now?” asked his father.

“What?” The gasp escaped anyway.

“Do you like it here now? I recall you once  sayin ’ you  wasn’t no prissy horse groomer and constantly  askin ’ why we was here with these... what did you call ‘ em ? Saps? Stupid saps?”

Micah cleared his throat and shrugged, glancing away. “Why does it matter?” he said.

His father took him by the shoulder, his grip gentle, his thumb almost massaging. Micah looked up and saw an unbelievable kindness in his father’s face. The lines and wrinkles in his skin, usually so deep, were smooth. He looked younger, happier. Something twisted in Micah’s gut, only this time it  wasn’t like snakes or rats or insects scrambling over each other. It was something slower. Something warmer.

“Micah, I brought us here for you. I chose this place for you. I thought it was about time you got to become the man you keep  wantin ’ to be, that you keep  tellin ’ me you are. You fitted in well here. You really  intergrated yourself, and that’s good. That's exactly what was needed. You worked hard. All right, so some of it didn’t go the ways you wanted, some of it was unexpected, but I think you grown to like this place. The people.”

Micah tore his gaze from his father’s. “You brought me here just to work?” he asked.

His father’s grasp tensed on his shoulder, his voice barely above a whisper despite the passion underneath it. “And it will be good work, son. The best work you will have ever done in your life.”

“ Fixin ’ the roof?” Micah raised an eyebrow and leaned his head back.

There was a pause, then his father’s expression creased into amusement. Real amusement. He laughed. “That and more, son. That and more. There’s plenty more work left to do.”

Micah breathed. He was just at the ranch to work. There was, of course, always the chance his father would thieve things from the  Briggses before they left , but as far as he knew nobody had reported anything missing from the farmhouse. It was just work. Good, honest work for a reasonable pay. No doubt they’d be back on the road  soon , but for now they were going to work as everyone else in the country did. The break from chasing stagecoaches and dipping hands into lines of purses held by the sobbing rich folk he had hated at first, but recently he wasn’t sure if he missed it at all. He couldn’t remember the name of the last town they’d hit before reaching the ranch.

His father lowered his posture, bending at the knees, and raised his other hand to Micah’s jaw. The sensation of knuckles brushing against his skin made Micah start and jolt away, but his father held him fast. Unusually, his father didn’t dig claws in, which made Micah stop his struggle and turn to look at him again.

“They got you good, didn’t they?” his father said. His tone was sad. His expression was still. He held the palm of his hand against Micah’s neck, his fingers hooked around the back of it. It was warm.

“I got ‘ em back better,” Micah said. He kept his jaw set, just in case his father touched it again.

“That’s my boy,” said his father, patting his neck. Micah hid his wince in a smile. “You know,” his father continued, leaning in closer, studying him, “one time, way back when, your momma said you looked exactly like me. I see it now. And I, for one, am mighty glad of that."

Micah faced his father as he was released from his hold. His father slipped away and the mist began to envelope him like steam. “Wait, you  ain’t never mentioned her before,” Micah said, carefully picking his way over the tiles as he went after him.

His father turned. “Who?” he asked.

Micah clutched the claw hammer close to his chest with both hands. His father’s answer meant the conversation was over. “Nobody,” he replied.

His father nodded. “Roof  ain’t gonna fix itself. C’mon,” he said.

Micah watched the old man vanish into the white nothing and tightened his grasp on the claw hammer until his skin turned pale as the mist. After a moment he sighed, hooked the hammer through his belt, and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (X) doubt
> 
> thanks for still reading u absolute mad men! i dont deserve u! sorry if this chapter is kinda boring!!


	26. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the 3 week hiatus! Sorry it's not a v exciting chapter!! Love yall!

By noon the mist had lifted, but the barn’s roof didn’t seem any less isolated, any less far away from the world below. The Fall sun was almost warm on Micah’s back as he worked, heating the damp patch of sweat seeping into his shirt between the shoulder blades. He’d kept quiet as they repaired the roof, only answering his father’s questions and statements with hums or nods. The old man was still suffering from his streak of kindness and it was a hard act to keep up with. He feared he’d fall for it completely if he lost focus. 

“Need a break?” asked his father, running a hand back through his hair. Micah wasn’t sure if it was wet with perspiration or the stinking oil he liked to soak the strands in. 

“I’m fine,” Micah replied, opening and closing his bad hand to test the give of the old glass cuts on the palm. He stayed half-knelt with his elbow balancing on one thigh, mostly because he knew it’d ache if he dared move now. 

“You sure?” 

Micah stood up (it ached) and shook out his hand. “Please,” he said through his teeth, “I said I was fine, didn’t I?” 

His father looked taken aback. His eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened. Micah shuffled his feet. 

“I was only-” 

“You was only what? Orderin’ me?” 

“Askin’. I was only askin’.” 

Micah breathed out and clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. 

“Did you want a break?” his father asked again. Micah hated that gentle voice, that soft tone, the relaxed posture, the half-smile, the expectant look, the entire thing to make it seem as if his father was a nice man. Something in Micah’s chest felt like it was being throttled. He nodded. 

“Then go. Go take a walk, go indoors. It’s all right, there’ll be plenty to do when you’re back,” said his father. 

Micah stared at him. Stared at the man with the calm composure and the kind smile, his hand held out in a welcoming gesture to leave if he’d liked. He stared and he felt that throttled something in his chest struggle less and less. Was it what he wanted or what he feared? 

He went to the ladder and avoided straying within six feet of his father, unsure if the old man was going to lunge for him. With his breath short and his hands shaky, he hurried down it and jumped the last few rungs in his haste to get away from the barn. Disguising his rush as a contented jog was double the job it should have been. Once he was far from the barn and nearer the farmhouse, he slowed his pace and for a moment, a stupid moment, he considered going to talk to Maggie. 

His boots started to drag. He kicked the toe of one boot into the back of the other leg’s calf as a sharp punishment for that stupid thought, almost tripping himself. Maggie was gone. Gone home to Williamstown or whatever lucky place. Good. _Good._ It was good that she was gone, away from the ranch, away from him. She’d forgotten him the moment she stepped onto the footplate of the cart taking her back to her family. Good. He clutched the arm Jean had stitched up and squeezed it. _Good._

A breeze picked up and whipped at the hair hanging in his eyes. Micah raised a hand to his forehead to brush it back, and at the same time saw a white sheet tumble across the grass. 

“Micah! Catch it!” called a voice. Micah turned on his heel to see Jean’s round figure trotting down from the house with an arm up and waving. 

With a snort of a laugh and a smirk he chased the laundry. It was stupid, but not as stupid as his thoughts about Maggie, so he put his all into it. He snatched a corner and tried to bundle the rest into his arms, but hadn’t noticed the other ends of the bedsheet slip under his feet. He ended up standing on them and falling base over apex into it, rolling down the hill before finally sliding to a stop. 

He heaved in air and laughed again before rising and gathering up the sheet as small as it would go. He saw the grass stains and streaks of mud. It wouldn’t be too tough to fold those parts over and hide the muck, but Jean had already seen him half wrap it around himself and end up in the dirt. Maybe she would forgive him if he had looked funny enough. 

Jean caught him up and was wheezing a lot harder than he was. Micah nursed a bruise forming on a shoulder and brandished the badly-folded sheet at her. “I uh, I think I got it muddy. I’m sorry,” he said, trying to look appealing despite knowing it was difficult with a face like his. 

Jean, thankfully, laughed. “Oh, don’t worry about it, I’ll just wash it again,” she said, taking the sheet from him and folding it properly over her arm. 

“Is it ruined?” he asked, stepping forward and raising a hand, then frowning. What was he doing? Why was he concerned about it? 

Jean turned on the spot and her eyebrows drew together in puzzlement. “Ruined?” she said, patting the material down and brushing off dry mud, “of course not. Nothin’ ruined at all. Nothin’ that can’t be fixed, anyhow. I can fix anythin’.” 

Micah grinned with her, mostly out of relief there weren’t going to be any serious ramifications for his less-than-perfect rescue of the laundry. 

“Do you want to help out? Are you needed back on the roof?” Jean asked, making her way back up to the farmhouse. 

“What? Oh, I, uh, no. I’m sorta on a break.” 

“A break? Well, I couldn’t possibly ask you to help.” 

“No, no, I will,” he said, joining her and matching her pace. 

“You don’t have to, Micah. You can do whatever you want. You don’t have to do what us borin’ old folks say all the time, you know.” 

“I know.” 

Jean brought him to the back of the farmhouse and beyond the log store, where a long washing line was set in the ground, half of the laundry already hanging from it. “The last nice day before it gets real cold and miserable, they been sayin’,” Jean said, “so I’m gettin' one final load done before the Winter while the weather is good.” 

Micah looked at the line, at the crisp, pristine bedsheets and clothes, at the way the wind tugged at the sleeves and corners, then at the bedsheet he’d ruined sitting flopped like a dead animal in Jean’s arms. Jean spotted him and laughed, throwing the sheet into an empty basket. 

“Don’t fret about it. Gosh, you ain’t half a worrier!” she said. 

Shame ran red hot up Micah’s neck. “I am?” He was weak. If a rancher’s wife could tell when he was nervous, he was weak. 

Jean drew a fresh sheet from her basket and shook it out in the wind. “Oh, yes. Ever since you first arrived here at the start of the week. I saw it that night you and your father appeared. You was a little rude but now I know that’s just how you are when you’re worried. Bein’ worrisome just means you’re thinkin’ about things, so don’t let it bother you too much.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replied, leaning down and grabbing a handful of damp clothes and slinging them over his shoulder. 

“I just said don’t let it bother you too much. Keep it outta your mind,” said Jean with an amused lilt in her voice. 

“I’ll keep _that_ in mind,” he said, catching her eye and returning the knowing smirk. 

“Make sure you shake those out straight before you hang ‘em on the line, now,” she called over when she saw he was simply draping the garments over the line and pinning them on at random points. Whenever he and his father had (rarely) washed their clothes, throwing the old shirts and pants over a rope slung between two trees usually did the trick, but even that was too much effort for the pair of them most of the time. 

_This is women’s work_ , said a voice which sounded a lot like the lizardy hiss of his father, _this is not what you_ _is meant to be doin ’. Oughta be ashamed. Better make sure nobody sees you._

“I’m sorry you missed our Margaret-May,” said Jean, standing beside him and fixing his lax job. 

“Yeah,” he said. It was all he could say. 

“She was sorry she missed you, too,” Jean went on, “I mean, she didn’t say nothin’, and I’m reckonin’ on her bein’ mad about... last night, but I know she wanted to speak to you.” 

“She didn’t wanna speak to me,” Micah said, twisting the material of the shirt he held. “I don’t think she ever will again.” 

“Now, how do you know that? Hmm? I’m sure the next time you boys is down for some work maybe in the year comin’, she’ll speak with you again. In fact, I know she will.” 

“And how do _you_ know _that_?” he said, mimicking her tone. 

“Because you was decent to her.” 

Micah looked across at Jean’s face. He took in her friendly smile, the way it bunched her cheeks up to her eyes and made them smile, too. She had meant what she said, and that was the worst part of it. 

“You talked to her like she was a person. Like she was a friend. Wasn’t nothin’ sinister in your agenda, Master Bell. Makes a change from all those boys usually pawin’ for her like dirty dogs, that Couzens included. I rather think she found it a refreshin’ change. And I thank you for that.” 

The only thing he could think of doing was give her another smile and nod. 

“Besides,” she added, throwing another sheet over the line, “she was mad because she cared. I know that girl as if she were my own daughter. She cared.” 

Something tied a knot in Micah’s throat. He glanced away and raised his eyes to the sky, to the sun straining to shine. “I have to get back,” he said, still facing away from Jean and moving around her, “my break’s over.” 

“Oh, well, all right. Thank you for your help.” 

Micah strode away at as quick a speed as he dared, then stopped when Jean spoke his name. 

“Micah, I’m writin’ to Margaret-May. Roscoe asked me if I would. I said yes. He told me what happened down at the Sheriff’s, why you was late seein’ her off. I know it means a great deal to you, so I’ve already started writin’. Do you still want me to do it?” 

He remained still. His good hand closed into a fist. He had a good mind to turn about and tell Jean to throw whatever she’d already written into a fire, to never write to Maggie about him, to never speak his useless hand-me-down name again. Instead, he turned around with his head down, his fist relaxing back into a hand, and jerked his head in a nod. “Yes,” he said. 

Jean breathed through a smile and he was glad she said nothing else. 

\--- 

“What you get up to?” his father asked when he heaved himself back up from the ladder onto the barn roof. 

“Huh?” Micah asked, rolling his sleeves back up from where they’d fallen to his wrists. 

“Where’d you go? You was a while.” 

“Went for a walk.” 

“You went for a walk?” 

“S’what I said.” 

“You enjoy it?” 

Micah went back to the equipment he’d left before his break and knelt in front of the materials and tools. He picked up the claw hammer and span it in his good hand. “I don’t know,” he said, smiling, “what needs doin’?” 


	27. The Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM BACK BABEY

Early evening crept in pink and gold. The patch of sweat which ran from Micah’s collar to his pants waist felt cooler as the sun vanished. He sat on the cedar planks  up on the roof  with his legs outstretched and his wrists resting on his knees. The roof was nowhere near to finished, and that was almost disappointing. His back felt  nearly broken in two from the  labor but still there was more work to be done, just as his father had promised.

His old man had sung as he’d worked through the afternoon. He hadn’t sung well, or even known enough lyrics to complete a refrain, but he’d sung. Singing meant his father was happy. Micah couldn’t understand what could possibly be making him feel merry enough to warble like he had. Not too long ago his skull had come close to being split in half.

“We won’t finish this. Not today,” Micah said after a long pause, after his father had finished his latest crude tune.

“Oh,” said his father with a shrug and a skip in his tone, “well, that’s all right. Not to worry.”

“We’ll do more tomorrow?” Micah asked, looking at his hands and testing his fingers for feeling. He could only sense a few of them.

“Not to worry,” his father said again, his voice far away, thoughtful.

Micah drew his head back and blinked. He stared at his father, standing apart from him at the edge of the roof with his hands on his hips, at how the sunset was turning the old man’s hair bronze like it had that first evening those long days ago. He came close to cutting an admirable figure.

He had to look down again, focused on  nurs ing his hands . He p icked out splinters and ran his fingers over new callouses, then rose to his feet. He expected the twinges and the aches now. The strain of his muscles pulling in all the wrong places and the cracking of old scabs reopening like cave mouths weren’t a comfort, but they weren’t shocks anymore, either. He’d felt worse. He’d feel worse in the future, he was sure. Maggie had once wondered how he put up with it, how he wasn’t floored by it. He supposed the reason was he couldn’t afford to be floored by it. To lie down was to lie down and die.

“Where you  goin ’?” asked his father when he spotted him creeping over to the ladder.

Micah stopped and squeezed a hand around his elbow where his shirt sleeve was bunched up. “Down,” he said.

His father turned to face him, hands still on his hips, his head tilted. With the sun at the old man’s back Micah could barely see the rest of his features, just the tiny lights in his eyes, small as matchstick heads. Was that the light or were they as red as matchstick heads, too? Were they blazing as if freshly struck? “Come here,” h is father said.

Micah stayed where he was. He crushed his shirt harder in his fist.

“Come on over here, c’mon,” said his father through a laugh, beckoning with a wave and an open arm.

“What you want?” asked Micah in a murmur.

“Want you to  c’mere ,” his father said.

Micah trod the timbers with careful footing and closed the gap, his arms heavy at his sides and his eyes askance.

He heard his father sigh and felt the warmth radiate from his hands when he reached them up to his ears. Micah tensed. His father wrapped his fingers around the sides of his head. The fingertips pressed into the flesh at the base of his skull. “You done so well,” his father said, shaking his head back and forth like he was rattling a can, “you done so well.”

Micah stared at the line between his father’s eyebrows, waited for it to pinch. It didn’t. He waited for the thin skin on his father’s temple to bunch. It didn’t. Micah brought his gaze lower. The brown flecks around the pupils of his father’s eyes were the warmest, worst things he’d ever seen.

“Now say yes to me,” said his father.

“What?”

“Say yes to me. Say yes. That you done good. That you will do good now.”

“I don’t know what is it that I done so good,” Micah said, his hands twitching at his hips. The old cuts on his palm flared. The cut Jarvis had carved into his bad arm stung at its edges as if to remind him it was there and hated being ignored.

“Just say yes. Say yes to me, that’s all.”

“What am I sayin’ yes to?” Micah whispered. His heart fluttered in his chest like a bird, growing more and more frantic.

His father leaned his head down close, took a firmer grip on him, breathed so intently through his teeth it blew back the stray strands hanging in Micah’s eyes. “All you  gotta do is say yes. That’s it,” he said.

The grasp his father had on his skull increased. The blunt fingernails started to dig in. His father’s palms now completely covered his ears and blocked out all sound besides the roaring of his own breath traveling up and down. It sounded like a storm in his head. Until it stopped. All that remained when he held his breath was the strange noise of nothing. A deep, booming nothing. He exhaled. “Yes,” he said.

His father let him go and bent low to his level, eyebrows up, his smile curved as evenly as if a potter had spun it on his wheel. “Thatta boy. That’s all you had to do. Now I know you will do good for me,” his father said.

Micah ran a hand over the back of his neck and scratched at where his father’s fingers had sunk in. He looked away despite the presence of his father’s leering face. Before he could move or speak again, the old man pulled him into a harsh embrace, trapped his arms in front of him between their bodies. Micah struggled to free his bad arm.

“You will do good. And if you don’t, I’ll make sure you do. You will do good,” hissed his father’s voice at his earlobe. Micah’s eyes widened.

His father released them. Micah staggered back, his heel sliding on the cedar. He cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. His father was still smiling at him. Micah couldn’t meet his eyes anymore. “I’m  goin ’ back,” he said, sniffing and running the back of his hand under his nose.

The old man swung his legs back and stood with his feet apart, hands back on his hips. He bowed his head and nodded, then lifted a hand to wave him away. Dismissed. “Off you go,” he said.

Micah didn’t need telling twice. He didn’t need telling once. He went to the ladder and with slow, cumbersome limbs, slid down it. He reached solid earth and spent a minute leaned against the ladder, an elbow hooked over a rung, his forehead pressed to another higher up. The wood was cold now that night was drawing a curtain across the top of the world.

He set off toward the farmhouse, rolling down his sleeves as he walked. The material was damp and he was sure he smelled unpleasant. If Maggie was  around he might have cared about that.

The door opened and warm, yellow light spilled out, running like gold water down the porch steps. “Micah,” said Jean, “where’s your pa?” She stood on the threshold and pushed the door wider to let the old dog George squeeze past her and bound away into the yard.

“Still up there. He’s  tidyin ’ I guess. We didn’t get to finish the roof today,” he said.

Jean smiled. “Well, that doesn’t matter all that much. Barn will still be there in the  mornin ’, won’t it?”

Micah said nothing. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the dark, lone figure of his father still up on the roof.

“Is that you boys done for the day?”

“I suppose,” he said, looking back at Jean, who was still beaming her wide smile. He’d never seen a woman smile so much. Women didn't tend to smile when they saw he and his father riding up to greet them.

“That roof finished, son?” asked Briggs, striding out, a rag in his hand. He was cleaning his hands and somehow leaving them dirtier than they had been before.

“Not yet, Mister Briggs. Almost, I’d say,” replied Micah. He stood up a tad straighter. A bone in his spine crunched.

Briggs laughed and shrugged, slinging the rag over his shoulder. “I’d say not yet is better than a flat out no, wouldn’t you agree? How about your old man? He still  workin ’ up there?”

“Pretendin’ to,” Micah said.

“You boys  wantin ’ to stop to eat?” asked Jean.

“Huh? Oh,  naw , thank you, mam, but I expect we’ll be headin’ into the town for all that.”

“ Headin ’ into town for what?” said his father’s voice.

His father shouldered his way into the light, adjusting the bandages about his forehead and using a part he’d torn off to tap away sweat from his brow.  Micah hadn’t even heard the crackle of the dirt as he’d approached. Briggs returned his father’s simpering head bow greeting with a flick to his hat.

“For food and that,” Micah said, fighting to hide a sigh escaping between his words.

“It’s rabbit,” said Jean, wringing her hands together in front of her apron. Her eyebrows arched high and her mouth was trying to hide a proud smile.

“Why don’t you stick around, then?” said his father.

Micah whipped his head around and looked at the old man. Again, no malice, no mocking aura, no low rumble of a laugh beginning. “Really?” he asked his father. He could have kicked himself at how expectant and high-pitched his voice had sounded. _Oh, really, daddy? Can I please?_ He was seventeen, not seven.

His father rubbed at his bandages, the rest of his posture loose. “Sure, why not? It’s been a long day an’ you worked hard. These good people  is invitin ’ you to supper with ‘ em . You should accept.”

Micah searched his father’s face, or what he could see of it in the fading evening, for anything which suggested what he’d said was a joke. No flash of teeth or eyes. No shadow of a smirk at the corners of his mouth.

“Are you not wantin’ to join us, Mister Bell?” Jean said.

His father put up his hands. “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of  botherin ’ you, Missus Briggs. You feed up that boy and I’ll be happy. Micah, I’ll leave your horse here. You come on back down into town later when you’re ready. Yes. When you’re ready.”

Micah could only nod, still checking his father’s face for evidence of a trick.

His father bent his torso forward and touched a hand to his hairline at Jean before turning and walking down the yard.

Watching after him, watching him go, watching the way his shoulders rose and fell, watching how the last of the light caught the blonde in his hair, made Micah’s skin turn to gooseflesh. It felt as if it was lifting completely away from him and he was left as bones. The cold night bit into him.

“Micah.”

Still staring with wide eyes, Micah looked over at Jean and Roscoe. They stood on the porch, barely a breath apart from each other. Jean had her arms crossed, her hands holding her elbows. Briggs stood with feet wide apart and expression sincere.

He’d seen photographs of people before. In the big houses he and his father had raided, sometimes even in the smaller ones, there had been portraits. Black and white pictures of handsome men and women standing or sitting. Once, they’d chased down a coach pulled by mules only to find it was a mobile darkroom. A place, the poor man driving the wagon had said before his father killed him for wasting their time, where he would develop photos, dip them into liquids, reveal the images his camera had captured. Micah imagined that photographer where he stood now, setting up the funny tripod contraption, throwing the black cloth over his back. The  Briggses would make a good picture posed as they were. He smiled and went up the steps to follow them indoors.

Inside, Micah rolled up his sleeves again to disguise the muck on them. “Do you always do this?” he asked, dusting off a shoulder. “Do you always invite strangers into your home?”

Jean laughed. “When someone invites a stranger into their home, they become a guest, Micah Bell. Is it so strange to think we’d want to eat dinner with you again? Besides, almost everyone who’s worked here has been here for dinner, right Roscoe? Even that Jake Couzens.”

“Even that Jake Couzens,” said Briggs, humming and rubbing his chin. “Reminds me, gotta have a long talk with that one next week ‘bout what he did.”

“Let’s not speak of that. This is a nice  evenin ’. Micah’s father is recoverin’ and doin’ well. Don’t bring a curse down on him,” said Jean, bustling around the table to the stove.

Micah cleared his throat and took a seat. There was no Maggie to talk to, or even to glare at, as she had done to him the other night before the air had relaxed around them. He knitted his fingers together in his lap and crushed his hands between his knees under the table.

The food was served after grace, which Micah remembered to wait for. It was simple rabbit and vegetables, but better than anything the place down in Cranberry could force from their best cook with a gun to his head.

“How is you doin’?” Briggs asked after a while.

Micah glanced up with a forkful in his mouth. “What you mean?” he said.

“After all that with them men  lookin ’ to get your guns. What Sheriff  Roadnight told me of. Still  hurtin ’ from it?”

Micah took the fork from between his teeth and placed it down on his plate. Was Briggs asking if he was still fit to work or  was he truly worried? “I had worse, Mister Briggs. Honest, I’m good,” he replied.

Briggs tipped his head back and barked a laugh. “You had worse? Between that and Stone I was  gettin ' to  wondrin ’ if you  was gonna break. You  is stronger than that, I wager, hmm?”

“I am,” Micah said, surprised at the firm tone his voice had taken.

“That’s good,” said Briggs, “you don’t let  nothin ’ take you down, huh?”

“Yessir.”

“Boys,” said Jean, sitting up straight in her seat opposite, “would you be so kind as to not talk of  fightin ’ at the table?”

Briggs grinned. “Jeanie can’t abide fightin’,” he said in an aside to Micah, who glanced between the pair of them in quick succession, “however, boy is she good in one.”

“Micah,” said Jean in a louder voice, though Micah caught the  humor in her eyes, “how have you liked it here now that it’s been a few days? I distinctly remember you  sayin ’ to me that first night you  wasn’t enjoyin ’ your time here in Crawford County.”

Micah sat back and ran his hands across each other. His fingers traced the raised lacerations on his bad palm. “I like it better now,” he said, frowning. What was it his father had said? I think you grown to like this place. The people.

“Now, _that’s_ what’s good, Roscoe Briggs. Not  fightin ’ and  bein ’ strong. Bein’ happy. That’s what’s good,” said Jean, pointing a finger at her husband who raised his hands in surrender.

He let them talk away to each other, satisfied with listening to discussions about the ranch and the folks who worked there, or the people Jean met in town and the hushed gossip they passed to each other when buying hats or groceries. Sometimes the conversation would roll back around to him, and he found himself answering eagerly, though never earnestly. Whenever the topic of Maggie reared its ugly head, Micah stayed quiet. He remembered Jean’s warning about talking of her in front of her uncle Roscoe.

Briggs lit a cigarette as Jean tidied up. Micah went into the hall and peered at the grandfather clock by the staircase.

“ Wondrin ’ if your father’s worried and  waitin ’ up for you?” asked Briggs, appearing in the doorway behind him.

“I don’t know,” Micah said, his back still to Briggs. “Sometimes it’s like he’s  worryin ’. Sometimes it’s like he  don’t mind at all.”

“Either way,” Briggs replied, “it  ain’t so helpful to a young man, is it?”

“Not really.” Micah turned and saw Briggs had his old brown hat in his hand. It struck him he’d not worn it for days.

“I think you left this behind in the house sometime,” Briggs said, going to him and holding it out by its brim, upside down.

Micah reached out a hand for it, then stopped. There was paper inside it, folded neat.

Briggs brandished the hat at him again. “Old Jeanie is a little possessive of our Margaret-May, Micah Bell. I think she reckons I’m the protective one, but I don’t know. Still, I thank you for not mentioning her when we all talked. I was sorry you missed  seein ’ her off, and I imagine...” Briggs shook the hat so the paper rattled inside, “... she was sorry, too.”

Micah took the hint and took the hat. He slipped the papers into his back pocket, then pulled the hat onto his head.

“You get along now. There’s a roof needs  finishin ’ tomorrow.” Briggs smiled, his cigarette glowing between his fingers and showering ash when he waved a hand at the door.

Micah nodded, yanked down the brim of his hat to both hide his eyes and depart Briggs’s company but was stopped again before he could move, this time by Briggs pressing the big hunting jacket into his shoulder.

“Don’t forget your jacket.”

“That’s your jacket,” Micah said.

“Exactly. It’s your jacket. Go on, get back to town.”

He took the coat and slumped it on. It was still heavy, still smelled of metal and oil and wood. Micah pulled the collar up high over his neck.

“Goodnight,” said Jean, arriving from the kitchen drying a plate in her hands. She paused to wave the dishcloth at him. He waved back and opened the door, stepping outside. He walked backward to give the  Briggses one final look, then hurried to the stables.

\---

The ride back to Cranberry he kept slow. His steed was thankful for it, but hadn’t forgotten their last journey and was snorting and tossing his head more than usual. Micah didn’t mind.

Colman’s livery was closed when he reached it, so instead he hitched his horse outside the saloon and headed inside, past the drunks and the dregs and through the smoke up to the rooms.

His father was lazing on the bed when he entered. The old man opened an eye and hacked a cough. “You  was a while,” he said, rolling over from his back onto his side to face the wall.

“Yeah,” said Micah, already kicking at the blankets he was using for a bed on the floor. The room was dark so he had to guess where it had ended up after a night without him.

“You eat well?”

Micah shrugged off the hunting jacket and pulled down his suspenders with a snap, letting them hang loose around his legs. “Huh?”

“I asked if you ate well,” his father said.

“I did. Why you care?”

“Because it’s important. Need you well-rested.”

Micah unbuttoned his shirt to halfway down his front and faced his father’s shoulders. “For fixin’ the roof tomorrow?”

“Yeah. For the roof tomorrow.”

Something in his father’s voice sounded sarcastic. Micah ignored it, kicked off his boots, and gave up the rest of his undressing to get straight under the thin blankets lying scattered on the floorboards. He pulled the folded papers from his back pocket and without a sound unfurled them, then rapidly pulled the blanket up higher over his head and made sure to angle himself away from his father.

It was even darker under the covers, but he could just about read the words. The first ones made his stomach lurch.

_ Micah Bell. _

He breathed. The paper in his hands wobbled with its breeze. He read on.

_ Micah Bell, _

_ As I write this, my uncle and the sheriff of Cranberry are talking down the hall. They are talking about you. I was not permitted to listen, but it sounds as though you have landed yourself in some trouble of an unscrupulous kind. I have drawn the hasty but sensible conclusion that this means you shall not be here in the morning to say goodbye. I have already accepted this, as I hope you have as well. _

_ Perhaps this event was not your fault. You seem a rambunctious sort, however I do not know you well enough to either defend or condemn you accurately. I would like to assume you were wronged. It sounds a terrible business. I am sorry if you have become hurt again. That, at least, does not seem fair to you. I have never seen your face without an injury upon it. In a small way I wish that was different. _

_ Please find alongside this letter one of my stories. You have read it before, and indeed, you have kindly copied it for me in your hand so I can send it away to the publishers. I still am grateful to you for helping me with that task. You write well for a boy. I hope it is one you liked and would want to read again. _

_ Do not misunderstand me. I enjoyed your company very much at certain times, but I am unsure as to who you are, Micah Bell. I think you are a good person. I think am I still sad for you. _

_ I am swiftly running out of paper. This is my goodbye to you. I am sure I will feel sad for writing such a seemingly cruel letter for you tomorrow, but I will have gone by then. Perhaps you shall never receive this note at all. I hope you do. _

_ Yours, _

_ Maggie-May _

_ P . S . I have forbidden my uncle from reading this note, but I know he will. He is a reader of my stories, and if anyone can interpret the semantics of linguistics, it is him. Please listen to what he has to say. _

_ P . P.  S . Uncle Roscoe. If you cannot get this letter to Micah, please destroy it. _

_ P . P . P . S . Uncle Roscoe, please do not destroy the story. It is my only copy and I suppose I had better have it back if it is to have no reader. _

It had grown too dark to read the letter again. Micah separated the story from the letter on top of it. The tale was the one about the man alone in the old English manor chased by an entity which only revealed itself in reflections. He recalled the chills it had given him. As silently as he could, he flipped back to the letter and squinted at the first P.S. _Please listen to what he has to say._ Briggs had said _I imagine she was sorry, too_.

Micah tucked the letter away into his pocket and rolled onto his back. The bones and the muscles ached and something clicked, but it didn’t matter. He rested his hands over his chest and tapped his fingers against his sternum.

Maggie had bothered to put  pen to paper and written to him to say in her flowery, round-about way that she was sorry to have missed him that morning. The roof was nearly fixed. Briggs had let him keep his big hunting coat. His father was being pleasant to him.

He fell asleep trying to remember the nicer things Maggie had said in her letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a slow one and that there was such a long pause!! HOPE YALL ENJOY THIS NICE TIMES IN THIS VERY NICE STORIE!!! only nice times ahead


	28. The Night Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE WE GO

_ Michas! _

_ Michas, biegać! _

“Micah!”

He was jolted awake so suddenly the sensation of being ripped from a half-dream made a noise somewhere in the center of his brain. Micah rolled over, eyes so wide they hurt, hands halfway to his face just in case.

In the black, his  father was stooped over him, one foot on either side of the threadbare blankets.  Micah could only really see the glint of light in his eyes.  The old man’s body bent low and a hand clutched his shoulder, shaking him. Hair was falling into his father’s face, each slick strand swinging like a pendulum. “Wake up,” he said, giving him another furious shove.

“Let go of me. What is it?” Micah whispered, wincing against the grasp his father had on his arm.

“Get up, I said.” His father moved away across the room.

“Why?”

His father threw  Briggs’s hunting jacket at him. Micah couldn’t bring his hands up to catch it in time, so, tragically, what felt like a ton of coat hit him in the face. He coughed and shook it off, sitting up. “Dammit, will you tell what this is about?”

There was a scuffling noise by the door which must have been his father pulling on his boots. “The ranch,” said a voice from somewhere in the dark.

“The ranch?” Micah asked, kicking the blankets from him and kneeling, putting on the jacket. “What about the ranch? What’s wrong? What time is it?”

“There’s trouble,” his father said.

Micah stood up and swayed. It took a moment for his half-asleep body to catch up with the motion. “What? What  kinda trouble? What’s goin’ on?”

“I said there was trouble. Hurry up and get your damn boots on.”

He decided not to press his father for more answers, certain he’d get nothing more out of him besides a geeing up or worse. Instead, he hunted for his boots with shaking hands and a racing heart. There had been a frantic strain to his father’s tone he’d not heard for a long time. His imagination rushed to the ranch, to the Briggses, to fire and violence. Was the ranch burning? Were the last of Stone’s boys back for bloody revenge? Had Jarvis smashed through the bars of his cell and gone looking for him like a hulking beast from a myth?

Maggie’s letter felt heavy at his back where it was stowed in his pocket, as heavy as the gun belt when he slipped it around his hips and pulled the leather tight. Micah breathed. It hurt. Everything still hurt. He was tired of it stinging and smarting and aching, and not just where it showed on his body. Something else hurt far more, somewhere deeper, somewhere darker.

“Move, boy!” his father said, stamping a foot at the door.

Micah blinked through the pitch of the night, knowing it wouldn’t improve his vision, and went to his father, who slapped the flat of his palm against his chest, making him jump and then wheeze.

“You got  everythin ’?” his father asked.

“Got everythin’?”

“You got  everythin ’ with you? You got your guns? All your things?”

Micah peered up at his father through narrowed eyes. He couldn’t see his face well. The eyes glinted every now and again. “I got  everythin ’ I came with, pa. Rest is on the horse,” Micah said, a hand going to the small of his back, the tips of his fingers touching the edge of Maggie’s letter.

“That’s good. C’mon now, we need to move.”

His father took him by the arm and led him into the hallway. Micah held his breath as they crept past the other rooms, only exhaling a tad with irritation each time a floorboard underfoot groaned. In the bar downstairs the lamps were still lit and glowing. There was nobody at the counter, but a couple of drunks were slumped on one table in the corner, snorting in their sleep. His father touched a calloused finger to his lower lip and frowned at him. Micah nodded and followed him to the café doors. His old man pushed them open (the hinges creaked) and stepped outside, calm as anything. The sudden, new lack of urgency was frightening. Where had the urgency and worry gone?

Micah’s horse was resting at his post, still tethered. As he undid the knot in the reigns and threw them back over the horse’s ears, his father ground his teeth. “Don’t ever leave a horse outside at night, boy. Especially not one with your saddlebags on. When will you learn?”

“Sorry,” Micah said, shrugging. He gave the horse’s neck a pat to stir him into standing. “I’ll ride ahead,” he added, one foot already in a stirrup, “I can get there faster than you can. I can help more if I get there first.”

His father clasped a hand around his other leg before he got the chance to swing himself up into the saddle. The horse grumbled and swaggered as his rider hung on, stuck halfway onto his back.

“What’re you doing?” Micah asked, struggling to keep his voice a quiet snarl. “We gotta go, you said.”

“You  in’t leavin ’ my side, hear? I’m  gonna get my horse and you will meet me out on the road into town. You do not go to the ranch alone, y’unnerstand?”

Micah’s heart, or the small lump of cold meat which had taken its place recently, sank in his chest. His father had returned to his old, stern ways. It took a huge effort to stop his next breath from shuddering. “Why?” he asked.

His father paused, as if in thought. The man had to _think_. “It’s dangerous,” he said.

“Which is why I  gotta go now,” Micah replied, trying to pull his leg from his father’s claws.

“No. You stay with me. You go  outta town and you wait.”

Micah tensed, his fingers turning white as he fought to cling to the saddle. “Yes, sir,” he said.

His father let go of his leg and he had to let it touch the ground again before he could leap up into the saddle. The horse grunted. Micah cracked the reigns against his neck and kicked him into a swift walk.

The night was still. There was no breeze to rustle foliage or send dust hissing over the track. Micah let his nerves get the better of him and urged his horse into a trot. The houses of Cranberry passed on either side like dark faces, yellow eyes glaring down through their eyelid shutters, their doors agape as black mouths. Micah tilted his chin down to his chest and rode on.

He waited on the road into town. His horse, unhappy at the early hour (or was it still late?) pawed the dirt and huffed. It wasn’t long before his father thundered over to join him, his black mare kicking and swerving. Rather than stop, his father flew on by, his horse roaring down the track in a full gallop. Micah watched after him, losing the black beast in the dark amongst the trees a second after they left him behind.

Micah didn’t need the old man. He knew the way to the ranch. With a jab, he forced his horse faster, just as he had when he’d rushed through the mist just that morning. And, like that morning, all he could hear was the grunts of the horse and the clatter of his hoofs and the heaving of his own breaths. He caught up with his father, but kept behind him despite the almost overwhelming need to overtake and race to the  Briggses .

“How did you know?” Micah asked when they were halfway to the ranch, trying to keep his horse level with his father’s.

“How did I know what?” replied his father.

“How did you know  somethin ’ was  happenin ’ at the ranch? You  was in the room the entire time, same as me.” Micah glanced away into the trees whipping past on his left.

His father was  quiet again. _Thinking again._ “One of Briggs’s boys came a- runnin ' and I stepped out to speak with him while you  was sleepin ’ dead to the world,” he said over the noise of their horses.

“Which one?” Micah knew he was pushing it.

“Pardon me?” His father was growling now, disguising it as a geeing up of his mare.

“Which of the Briggs boys talked to you? What did he say had happened?”

“What does it matter which one of them fools talked to me? They’s all look the same anyway. They look like you. All skinny and weak and no-good. Enough with the questions. I need you prepared now. Need you alert. Need you with me.”

Micah fell silent. He preferred falling silent to falling off his horse.

They reached the top of the hill which wound its way to the ranch. His father rode down at breakneck speed, but at the highest point of the rise Micah yanked on the reigns and stopped his horse.

The ranch was dark. No lanterns lit, no light in the windows, no movement in the yard. It was as if it had been frozen in a photograph. A photograph without the  Briggses smiling proud with arms about each other. The cold of the air which had streaked past him during the ride left him with a shiver he couldn’t shake off. Or perhaps it was the sight of the ranch giving him that chill.

He guided his horse down the path. The place was silent. Or as silent as a night could be if it hadn’t been for the eerie calls of animals and the racket he and his father had made. There were no shouts, no roar of flames. Micah dismounted from his horse and walked the rest of the way. It was the same fence he now flanked that he’d strolled beside that first evening they’d arrived. He remembered his boot had slipped on mud and his father had told him to take off his hat, fix his hair, be ready to meet their new employers. He touched at his hair and pushed it back out of his eyes.

Where was the trouble? Where was the chaos? The danger? Where was the Briggs boy who’d summoned his father to help them? Were Stone’s boys lying in  wait? Was everyone...

His hand went to one of his revolvers.

“Pa?” he whispered into the dark.

The dark moved in front of him. Micah put out a hand and touched warm fur, flexing muscle, smelled dirt and hay and horse. His father’s black mare. He gave her rump a pat and moved past her. “Pa?” he asked the night again.

He headed to the farmhouse. The toes of his boots scuffed the steps as he crept up them, one hand still on the grip of a revolver. His breath wobbled as it escaped from between his teeth. He didn’t call out again, in case Stone’s boys were poised ready to jump him.

The front door was open. Micah felt for it and pushed it open further, keeping his back to the wood. The hallway was black. He couldn’t see the stairs or the sideboard or the door to the kitchen. His breathing hitched. It was too dark. He blinked in the hope it might force his eyes to work harder. All he had was the dim light of a cloudy sky. No moon. No stars.

“Pa,” he said. He risked. The kitchen was to the left, that much he knew. He trod carefully, felt around with his foot for ends of rugs or bowed floorboards which might trip him, then found the door. It was closed. He ran his hand over the wood grain for the handle. He couldn’t remember the door ever having been closed before. Maggie was always whirling through it, Jean was always bustling through it, Briggs was always striding through it...

The handle. He took it in a quivering hand and turned it. It squeaked. He eased the door open with his shoulder and stepped inside.

It was nearly as dark inside as the hallway, but he could see better thanks to the window fighting to allow what little light was outside through the dirty pane. The table was a black board in front of him. He moved around it, one hand running along the surface. He’d eaten dinner here not too long ago. The room had been warm and comforting. Now there was nothing of it. It was as if it had been cut away.

Micah went to the window. Something hit his shin. It had been large and soft and warm. The dog. Micah stepped back and clapped a hand over his mouth to stop himself yelping. He caught his breath, caught his mind before it ran away, then approached again. He sank to one knee and reached out a hand. His fingers touched clothes, not fur.

He snapped his hand back. Then, after another minute of steeling himself, used both hands to roll over the something. The something was heavy. He grabbed at the something’s garments, leaned in close, put a hand on the chest to feel deep breathing. He saw a face. A face with a dark  mustache , a smooth, shining forehead and a gentle look. “Mister Briggs,” Micah breathed, sitting back on his ankle.

Micah stood up, a hand going for his revolver. Stone’s boys had attacked the ranch. He brandished the revolver in front of him blindly, backing into the stove, one leg over Briggs. Despite the cold of the farmhouse, the freezing metal of the stove at his back, he was boiling hot and sweating.

Footfalls.

Micah’s knees buckled.

Something moved in the kitchen doorway. He could make out a shape, an arm, a shoulder. Sweat rolled from his temple to his chin.

“There you are,” said a voice.

Micah frowned, the gun in his hand rattling.

“Are you ready to do that good work?” asked his father.


	29. The Night Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay! To make up for it, this chapter is over 5.5k words long! tho unsure if that's a good thing!
> 
> TW for vivid description of bloody injury.

“What is this?” Micah asked, his lip wobbling but his tone steady. He kept his revolver trained on his father’s dark figure. 

The black shape moved. Micah could just about see his father cross his arms and shrug. “It’s the job, Micah.” 

If the edge of the cold stove hadn’t been digging into his back, Micah would have stepped away. Maybe if he tried he would sink right through the metal and stone and disappear. The hand holding the revolver dropped to his side, the gun’s barrel hitting his thigh and surely bruising it. The job. The fabled job. He looked down to Briggs, still out cold, breathing deeply, and saw now that his hands and ankles had been bound. 

“You was in the room. All night. All night, you was in that room with me. You didn’t leave,” Micah said, his voice only a breath. 

Somewhere in the dark, the door into the hallway behind his father clicked shut. The sound seemed strangely permanent. His father approached, moved toward him in the dark like an eel through sludge. “You was dead to the world. Didn’t hear me leave, not to talk to no Briggs boy, but to come here. Didn’t take long.” 

Micah shifted away, stepping around Briggs. “There was a dog woulda heard you,” he replied, unsure why his mind was still trying to conjure valid excuses as to why what was happening could not possibly be happening. 

“There sure was a dog.” 

Micah swung his head away, eyes closed hard. He holstered his gun roughly enough to mark the leather. “So, we’re robbin’ the place after all?” 

“And then some,” his father said. 

“Okay. All right. What we lookin’ for, huh? What do we want offa these people? Silverware? Vases? Jewelry? ‘Cause they sure as hell have a lot of that. Oh, yeah, these folks are loaded to the teeth with riches, pa! We is gonna be in the money after tonight, yessir,” Micah said, stepping away from the stove and rolling up his sleeves. He made his way by feel along the countertops to the drawers, then yanked one open and rifled through the cutlery, clattering them all together, sending a few clinking to the floorboards. He found a knife and squeezed his fingers around the blade. Of course. 

His father’s hand snapped out of the dark and took him by the wrist like the jaws of an animal. Micah dropped the knife back into the drawer. “Don’t you speak to me in that tone, boy. Don’t you never speak to me like that!” His father’s voice snarled from the black. “What else did you reckon on us bein’ here for? You gone as soft in the head as these foolish ranchers. A good job I didn’t put this off one more night. You might’a been fully turned by ‘em.” 

“I ain’t turned!” Micah said, ripping his arm away from his father’s hold. “I ain’t turned. I’m doin’ what you want. Now let me get on an’ do it.” 

“You r’member where they kept their good stuff?” His father asked. Micah could hear him rattling around at the kitchen bureau. 

“I told you,” Micah replied, slamming the cutlery drawer shut with a crash. “They ain’t got any good stuff. They’re ranchers. These people is about providin’ food and clothin’ and makin’ their money with livestock, not hoardin’ treasure like old plantations.” 

His father snarled. “Everyone’s got somethin’. Think, boy. If they had nothin’ they’d not have this nice roof over their heads. No money, no ranch. They got somethin’. These ain’t the days of tradin’ no more. Goods for money. That’s how it is. I want every floorboard pulled up by the end of the night. We’ll find it.” 

Micah stepped back and made his way past the table to where Briggs lay, still out cold. 

There came a snap of clicking fingers from across the room. “Don’t you touch him!” said his father. “You leave him be, don’t be wakin’ him up ‘fore we’re ready.” 

“Y’know, a hit on the head can be bad for a man,” said Micah, then quietly to himself: “You should know.” He turned his back on Briggs, unable to bear the sight of his still form. The rancher would never forgive them for what they were doing to him, to his home and his property, despite the current peace on his face as he rested in an unknowing oblivion. 

A horrible thought stabbed through Micah. With a gasp he stumbled around the corner of the long kitchen table and snatched at the blackness, hoping to find his father there to latch onto. At the same time, a lantern blazed and then dimmed in his father’s hand. Micah screeched to a halt before he knocked into him or sent the lantern flying to ignite the curtains, discovering himself almost nose-to-nose with the man. 

His father blinked. “What’s got you in a rush? Remember where the ranchers’ little stash is?” 

“Where is she?” 

“Where is who?” 

“You know damn well who. Where’s Jeanie?” 

“Oh, it’s Jeanie now, is it?” His father laughed. It sounded like screws and bolts shaking around in a metal can, loud and harsh. “Don’t you be worryin’ about her. Don’t you be worryin’ about none of this exceptin’ what it is that I tell you. You worry about that, now. You worry about the things I ask you to do and you do ‘em. That’s all that needs worryin’ over.” 

“Is she dead?” 

His father scoffed, ran his tongue along his top row of teeth. With the lantern’s light flickering beneath his chin, he looked like Mephistopheles rising from the fires of damnation to cut him a terrible deal. 

“I asked you if she was dead.” 

A grin curled on Mephistopheles’s pointed face. “She in’t dead. She’s in the next room all trussed up like her beloved, safe as church. Now less talkin’, more lootin’. Get.” 

Micah fixed his father with a glare, for once disappointed he couldn’t see what his own face looked like. He hoped it looked vicious, looked frightening, was something to rival his father’s sneer. Judging by his father’s smile, it was none of those things. Micah let out a long breath and moved away to rattle more drawers. 

\--- 

“I do believe,” said his father, clapping his hands together and rubbing them like a fly ready to tuck in, “that we have saved these good people from the awful sin of greed and gluttony, relieving them of their terrific burdens, amen.” 

The kitchen table, streaked by lantern light and shadow as if yellow and black drapes had been laid across it, was where the meager fruits of their search were huddled, drawing tragic attention to the vast expanse of table _not_ covered in loot. Micah cast his eyes over the measly meal of cutlery, candlesticks, photograph frames and battered jewelry boxes containing odd earrings and a handful of chain necklaces made from dull, valueless metals. “I told you,” he said, watching his father sort the items with a careless hand. The sharpest knives went immediately into his inner jacket pockets. “I told you they had nothin’.” 

“That was a joke, boy. Learn to unnerstand when a man is bein’ funny on account of his situation,” his father said, throwing things aside as he sifted through the haul and deemed various trinkets unworthy of their saddlebags. He stopped and leaned the knuckles of his closed fists on the edge of the table, hunched over with his head bowed. “I know they got more. They got somethin’ somewhere. Maybe in a wall or inside a chimerny. Perhaps under a loose stone on the hearth. Or buried in the woodpile, right at the back there. Yessir, they is hidin’ it well.” 

Micah raised his arms to shoulder height and held out his hands, laughing through his words in spite of his frown. “What if they ain’t? What if that’s all there is?” 

His father stood straight and hooked a stray strand of oily hair over his third finger, flicking it back to where it belonged on top of his head. He breathed deep. “No matter, no matter,” he said. “Not what we put all them days of work in for, at any rate. That’s next. Oh, that is next, my boy.” His father grinned. Micah saw the lantern’s light touch a square of sinister brightness to each of the teeth his old man had left. 

Ignoring his father’s strange answer was foolish, but he’d avoided trouble through feigning ignorance before. Now seemed as good a time as any to pretend he was deaf and ready to move the conversation along; sadly, his voice didn’t reflect how sure his mind was about changing the subject. “I know where they keep sacks for the logs. We can bundle all this up, though I’m thinkin’ we’d only need the one of ‘em,” Micah said, going to the kitchen’s back door. He chose to walk the other way around the table to avoid Briggs. He still couldn’t even stand to think about looking at the rancher, knowing if Briggs were awake, he would feel the same in return. 

His father had no qualms about taking the route through Briggs, however. With surprising alacrity, his father leaped smooth as a deer over the rancher and cut Micah off before he reached the door. He wrapped a hand around the handle and held fast. “Now, now, we ain’t done here yet. Why don’t I go get us one o’ them sacks and you stick around in here, hmm?” 

“You don’t know where they keep ‘em.” 

Another grin, a bob of the head. “But you can tell me.” 

Micah searched for an excuse to step outside and hurry the grim night along. “If you leave me in here, what’s to stop me cuttin’ Briggs loose and wakin’ him up? Thought you didn’t want that.” 

His father opened one side of his jacket with his free hand, revealing the handles of the sharp kitchen knives poking out of the pocket, so heavy they strained on the lining. “You’ll cut him loose with what, I wonder?” He raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes, the movement so quick it was as if his eyeballs had popped out for a second to get themselves a better look at the world before retreating back into his skull. “And I fully intend for your dear Mister Briggs to wake up. Gotta have him see who done this to him, after all.” 

Micah felt his shoulders drop and his arms swing useless and numb at his sides. 

His father set a hard gaze on him; the grin gone. But then it crept back up, coiling at the corners of his thin mouth. Micah thought he saw his eyes dart to the floor for a moment. “Aw, you know what?” he said, his hand slipping from the door hand and going to hold his belt. “I changed my mind.” He reached his other hand behind his grimy jeans and revealed his pocket knife. He held it blade first to Micah. “Take this, son. Do what you want. Do exactly what you want.” 

Micah took it. The metal was cold in his hand. It made the cuts on his palm wake up with a snap like a whip crack. 

There was a noise near the ground. A grunt, a shuffle, the hiss of clothes brushing over floorboards. “What is...” Briggs said, his eyes blinking and rheumy like those of an old man as he looked around and up at them through the dark. Micah saw his strong limbs already pulling at the bindings around his wrists and ankles. 

Before Micah could acknowledge the blood starting to pound in his ears and the tremor in the hand holding the knife, his father seized him by the lapel and pulled him near. Micah saw the tiny red lines in his father’s eyes. 

“Free your friend,” his father hissed in his ear, the old man’s nose pressing against his cheekbone and his breath hot on his jaw, “free your friend and find out how grateful he really is to see you.” The old man pushed him back so hard Micah staggered into the table and felt its edge bite into his hipbone. He clutched the knife and held it close to his chest, like a little girl would with a favored doll. His father disappeared out of the back door in a single step, slamming it shut. Micah rushed to it, slammed his hand on the wood. Outside, he heard the rumble and scrape of something being pushed against it. 

“Micah?” asked Briggs’s slurred voice. He was awake. Or as awake as the strike to his head would allow him to be. 

Turning around took both a fraction of a second and a century. Micah kept his eyes low and stopped when he faced Briggs, who was struggling on the floor, his bound feet kicking. 

“Micah, what are you doin’? What are you doin’, son?” Briggs said. 

Micah was still. He couldn’t do much but stare. Stare at the tied, injured form of the man, for only days he could count on one hand, had trusted and taken in two scraggly strays and given them a place to work, a place to eat, a place to be human. A place to act human, said the voice in the back of his mind, now unfurling like the snake which tempted the woman in the Garden. A place to pretend. A place for he and his father to speak English and wear clothes and play at being people, because truly now they had become animals again. The strays. “Mister Briggs,” he whispered. 

Without a thought, (mostly because he worried what his next one might be) Micah raced to Brigg’s side and threw himself into a painful kneel, landing on his kneecaps with a thud. He kept back the yelp he wanted to cry out and instead went to work with the knife on the ropes around Briggs’s hands. Briggs struggled, almost as if against him, but he didn’t have time to think about that. All he could think about was releasing Briggs and then Jean and then leaving through the hallway door. He glanced up to it, to their shot for freedom, half-expecting his father to be looming there too, laughing. 

The fraying ropes fell apart. Briggs’s wrists were ringed with scarlet. Micah looked at his own sweating hands, the knife balanced on his open palm. His vision blurred. 

Briggs grasped him by the front of his shirt and surged forward. He cracked his forehead against Micah’s. 

Micah’s head snapped back and he faced the ceiling. Stars and speckles of all colours sparked through his eyes, right to their backs. He didn’t feel the knife fly out of his hold, but knew it was gone somehow. Maybe it was the far-away clattering sound it made when it skittered over the floorboards which made him realize it was no longer in his hand. When he hit the ground with a crash, a rising ringing like the elongated call of loud birds with their beaks right in his ears screeched. It was a fight to breathe, and a chore to remember to keep doing it. His eyes were watering, or he hoped they were watering. Maybe they were bleeding. His voice was a gasp. “Mister Briggs,” he said. Or thought he’d said. 

“Where is Jean?” Briggs said, then to the room he called: “Jeanie!” 

Micah felt his heavy body being lifted upward. He blinked and peered through stinging eyes. He was hanging by his shirt over the floor, only his fingers and boot heels touching the ground. Briggs had him suspended by one hand. He flew a hand to where Briggs held him and gripped at his arm. When had Briggs cast off the ropes around his ankles? “Mister Briggs, listen to me-” 

Briggs stared down at him, and Micah, through the tears welling, saw his face, froze. It was like looking at the face of a bull. Briggs was all wide, reddened eyes, flared nostrils, and spit at the corners of the mouth. And, like a bull, there was a sort of immense sadness behind the face. A scared sadness, an angry sadness. It showed in the bunching of his eyebrows above the bridge of his nose and in the lines of his forehead, all of his wrinkles meeting like great ravines cut by the rivers of sweat running down from his hair. 

“Mister Briggs,” he said, his voice a squeak. Briggs had hurt him. He could feel the headache where he’d been struck, a log of timber thumping up and down repeatedly on his brow. Briggs had done that. It took a huge will to stop himself twisting in the rancher’s hold and wailing out the agony. Micah’s pulse was rushing through him. He swore his heart was no longer in his chest, but instead running the length and breadth of him, untethered, breaking through tendons and bones and smashing everything up. 

“We trusted you,” Briggs said, his expression softening as his eyes roved elsewhere. Micah still clung to his arm. “We trusted the both of you. Gave you jobs, gave you food, gave you shelter. We trusted you and you...” Briggs’s face wrenched itself into a reddened rage. “You did this. You did this!” 

“No! No, I didn’t! Mister Briggs, you’ve been hurt on the head, you don’t know what you’re sayin’ or thinkin’!” 

Briggs snarled and ignored him, or simply hadn’t heard him at all. He roared on. “Yes, you did! I heard you and your sneaking daddy! You had your knife and he told you to do what you wanted to me! You is both in this together, you snakes! You piled up all our things on the table for stealin’ away and you was gonna finish us off!” 

“I swear,” Micah said, he sobbed. “I swear I didn’t know nothin’ of this, please, you have to believe I didn’t know a thing of it! He tricked me!” 

“Like you tricked me?” Briggs said. Briggs shook him and Micah did nothing but feebly try to keep himself from passing out. “That’s how he did it, ain’t it? Sent his pathetic little whelp in to lower our guard!” 

Micah’s eyes were so huge they hurt, felt ready to roll out of his head. There was no affection left in Briggs for him. The smile from before, the one which creased the rancher’s cheeks and curved his mustache up under his nose like a second smile was gone. Maybe Briggs would no longer be capable of such a smile ever again. Like the mist which had fallen briefly then disappeared just as quickly that morning, all those hours ago, every one of Briggs’s decent thoughts of Micah Bell had dissipated. The rescue from Stone on the hills, the rat-trapping, the shooting game, the meals. He was wearing Briggs’s big hunting jacket and he wondered if it repulsed Briggs to touch it now, though he supposed in the dark Briggs couldn’t see that it was his coat. That was a better notion. Micah wanted to tear it off and rip it apart even if the rancher didn’t know. The material felt wrong, uncomfortable, scratchy, too hot. 

But what had he been thinking? He’d known Briggs less than a week. What had he been thinking assuming the man had ever liked him, ever felt anything stronger than tolerance? He’d never cared at all. He’d been reciting a script. A script he told every man on his ranch. Even Couzens and his slinking pal Connelly. Micah bet they’d had the same pep talks, the same shooting game, the same gifts. It was façade. Briggs wanted his men to work for him. That was all. But the Bells weren’t his men. 

_Maggie-May._

_No. Not her. She needed to go away._

“Tell me where Jean is, you vermin!” Briggs said, shaking him again. Micah started to resist. If he stayed limp and accepting his father would jeer. 

Micah was amazed to find himself breathless. He was stunned and still but at the same time sweating and exhausted. “She’s in the next room! The next room. Mister Briggs, I cut you loose because I was lettin’ you go! That door is blocked off but the hall door ain’t! You can go!” Micah wriggled, half-shrinking away, half-kicking out and clawing the floorboards. 

“That’s just like one o’ you, thinkin’ I’d run and leave family behind. I ain’t goin’ nowhere without Jean, and I will not leave my land undefended. I will capture you as you captured me. I will bring you to the Sheriff and I will hand you over myself for your reckonin’,” Briggs said. Micah watched Briggs’s eyes lower their gaze from his face, down his body to his waist. Briggs reached a hand to his left side. 

_He was still wearing his belt and guns._

Micah lashed out with feet and hands, forcing Briggs to drop him. He rolled over and fought with his belt buckle, trying to angle the holsters away from Briggs’s swipes and keep him back with a raised knee, a boot, an elbow, anything. It was typical he’d forget he was armed when on the edge of battle, and even worse that he’d nearly let an enemy – an enemy? - disarm him before the battle had begun. If Briggs took back his own revolver, that would be it. 

The buckle’s clasp clicked and sprung. Micah growled and ripped the belt off. It weighed almost too much to hold in one hand, but he threw it as hard as he could across the room. It flew out into the dark and crashed somewhere near the opposite wall. 

“I’ll string you up, boy!” Briggs took a fistful of his hair at the back where it was longer and pulled. Micah raised both hands behind his head to try and dislodge Briggs’s strong fingers before he tore his scalp away from the bone. Briggs was mad from his knock on the skull - he was a dog stung by a wasp, jumping and kicking and snarling and biting anything it went near without thinking. Some small part of Micah, the last little drip which might have been something positive once, attempted to reassure him that was all it was. Briggs was hurt and scared and running on furious fumes. Of course he was going to attack, to be angry. But he could also kill just as easy as shouting. 

The lantern above them on the table, shone behind Briggs’s back and lay rippling shadows over the big rancher. Briggs was now a black shape bearing down on him. Micah was glad there were no features to see in the dark face anymore. It made it easier to retaliate. He let go of Briggs’s arm and aimed a punch somewhere above him. He wasn’t sure where he caught him, but the hit landed and Briggs’s one-handed hold on him slipped. Micah yanked his head forward, losing a clump of hair in the process, and ended sprawled on the floor by the back door. He allowed himself a moment to clutch at his hair and squeeze it where it hurt the worst. His body was trembling, soaked in perspiration. Each breath was more a cough than an intake of air. His vigor was disappearing. His spirit was disappearing. 

Micah dragged himself to his feet before Briggs could slam his heel down onto his neck. For a man dizzied and blinded by the night, Briggs was nimble. Micah jumped away from another clawing aimed for his chest and waved a hand through the dark for the kitchen table. He ran his hand along it and used it to block Briggs’s advance. “Mister Briggs, you gotta stop!” he said. “Please, leave me alone! Please.” Between them was nothing but the table and the lantern. It lit Briggs up like it had his father, as a devil rising from flame. 

Briggs stood upright, turning from a crouching demon back into a man. His hands relaxed at his sides and he seemed to sway, affected by his injury, remembering he had one. “Didn’t I treat you well, Micah Bell?” Briggs asked. 

Micah caught his breath and ran a hand across the wet skin of his throat. It felt like his heart was stuck behind it. 

“Didn’t we treat you well?” Briggs asked again, his voice subdued. 

“You did, sir. You did.” The heart lodged in his throat stopped his voice from sounding strong. 

“We helped you. We helped the both of you.” Now Briggs was the stung dog upset that it had been kicked for making too much of a ruckus. 

It was Micah’s turn to sway. He didn’t know where to put his hands, unsure whether he should place them together in front of him in an imploring prayer or hide them behind his back and cross the fingers. “You did, sir. You did.” It was all he could think to say. 

“You was strangers to us and we treated you as friends.” 

“You shoulda treated strangers as strangers.” 

The rage returned as a twitch to Briggs’s shaded face and an edge to his tone. “Are you suggestin’ to me, after you strike me, tie me up, imprison my wife, steal from me, that I should have seen this comin’? That by takin’ you in and offerin’ my charity that I brought this down upon myself? Like it was a heathen witch’s curse I invited knowin’ly? Is that what you are sayin’ to me?” 

“I am sayin’...” Micah searched for words. He moved the toe of his boot as he thought and it touched something on the floor. He glanced down. A sliver of light reflected the blade of the dropped pocket knife. He looked up again with a quick breath and wide eyes. “I am sayin’ I wish you had known what my father was.” 

Briggs lowered his head and glared up at him from under his brows. “Wish I’d known what you was, too.” 

It was a slice through a soul as thin as paper. Micah steeled his gaze and set his jaw when he lifted his head. Was the pride swelling in his chest real? Why were his eyes dry? “I also wish that,” he said. 

Briggs sighed, deep and steady. 

Micah ground the pocket knife under his boot. 

Briggs placed both hands on the table and leaned forward. 

Micah bent a knee and crept his hand down his thigh, fingers stretching and preparing to take the knife. 

The moment he saw Briggs’s wide shoulders heave and his arms strain to pull his torso over the table to clamber over it, Micah dropped into a crouch, picked up the knife, rolled under the table and threw himself into Briggs’s legs. He hugged them together at the calves and pushed the both of them backward. Briggs fell like a tree uprooted. There was an almighty clang. Briggs had hit the stove and flopped over it with wheeling arms, grabbing for any part of it to right himself. 

Micah let go, knife still in hand, and shuffled backward on his tailbone away from Briggs. Briggs was still conscious even after another bump to the brain. He shook his head, flicking blood, and closed the gap between them. 

Micah jabbed up the knife. Briggs caught his wrist in his huge hand and clasped it tight. The rancher went to his knees with a crash, pinned him by the collar to the floor. Micah couldn't tell which noisy huffs were his and which belonged to Briggs, didn’t know whether the thudding he could hear was the sound of Briggs keeping him down or his heart trying to burst through the back of his ribcage like a hundred bullets. 

Their arms shook with the force of their silent war. Micah’s hand was stuck in Briggs’s, the fingers crushed, the knuckles rolling over each other. His other hand clasped his own wrist in the hope it could push the knife further away. Briggs needed only the one hand. The blade descended. Micah’s legs kicked underneath Briggs, just like Amos’s had done when their father had beaten him years ago. He was Amos now, helpless, pressed to the earth, with someone above him looking to bury him in it. 

Micah’s elbow slipped. It bowed out and up. The weight Briggs applied to the knife brought it straight down. Micah managed to use his other hand to stop it sinking into his flesh, but it was close. He could see the point of the blade tremble with the pulse of his own heartrate surging through his arms. And still it drew closer. He clenched his jaw harder and skinned back his lips with the effort, growling his panting through his teeth. Briggs’s face was chillingly still. 

The tip of the knife was close enough to click against his teeth and tickle the gum. Micah felt his shoulders starting to give. His heels slid rough and loud against the floorboards. He didn’t dare speak in case the expelling of breath relaxed his body and let Briggs win. Win? Was it about winning or losing? Briggs wouldn’t hurt him, would he? Not again. The first time was an accident, a reflex. 

The knife’s edge touched his bottom lip at the left corner and sat there, delicate as a lady perched on a bench. It was cold. 

There was a sound beyond his head behind him. 

Micah blinked and wheezed out a breathy sob of desperation, one he’d been holding off for long minutes. 

His hands went weak and slipped. 

The knife cut into his lip. Blood burst. His hands returned to strength with a last-minute heave of horror, but it wasn’t enough. The blade sawed through the flesh of his lip, started to cleave it in two, the skin coming away to hang free as a flap. He screamed. He screamed long and loud and messy. He could feel, under the gushing of blood, the sharp pinprick of the knife on the other side of his mouth skimming over his teeth and lower gum. And still he pushed the knife back with a juddering hold, howling. His eyes were slammed shut. He couldn’t see Briggs. He couldn’t see anything. The pain. He heard it, smelled it, sensed it all over. Blood was running slick and wet down his chin, his neck, seeping into his shirt, into the hunting jacket, flooding him. 

Micah wrenched his head to the side. The blade jumped out of his lip, leaving behind a great cleft, and snarled down his chin at an angle. He cried. The tears were hot as the blood. Maybe the knife had put out his eyes, too. 

He barely noticed the knife was gone, barely noticed his hands flop away from its handle to land at his sides, quivering. His eyes eased open, blinking through the blur, and he realized he wasn’t blind at all. Briggs was still leaned over him holding the knife. The entire thing was scarlet and dripping. Briggs’s hand was painted in red. The dim lantern light made the blood gleam nearly as white as Briggs’s face. 

Micah stared up at the rancher. The agony in his mouth made him reach a hand up to check the knife wasn’t still there. It felt as if the blade had been embedded into his flesh and sewn in, a new part of him. His head dropped to the ground and he lay there, let himself groan and gasp. 

“Micah,” Briggs said. He was out of breath and sitting back on his feet. “Son, I'm sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that. You have to understand, I didn’t mean for that.” He dropped the knife with a clatter. 

Something disturbed the shadows behind Briggs. There came the sound of something being quietly drawn across the floorboards. 

Briggs clutched his forehead in his clean hand and bent low, his sweat-drenched hair falling over his hand. He was muttering. 

Micah lifted his head to look at him, blood still boiling fresh from his mouth. 

The dark at Briggs’s shoulder wobbled. A white hand, clawed and twitching, moved through it like it was creeping from beneath a black tablecloth, fingertips first, then the curled digits, then gnarled, scarred knuckles. 

“Father,” Micah whispered. 

Briggs shuddered and glanced up. His eyes were shiny. “I’m here, son. It’s all right.” 

“No,” Micah said, propping himself up by an elbow. “No!” 

The hand and its arm, fast and strong, leaped from the dark and coiled around Briggs’s neck. It pulled his body back, the rancher’s strong legs unable to anchor him down in his kneeling posture. The knife Briggs had let go flickered in another hand, as white and thin as its partner. Blood spotted the rancher’s check as it flew from the blade. 

The hand made a fist around the knife’s handle and plunged the blade into Briggs’s throat under his ear. A strangled choke issued from Briggs’s parted lips. His hands rose in front of his chest but didn’t make it past his collar. They stayed shaking above his breastbone. The white hand whipped the knife out of his neck and then stabbed it in again, this time drawing it ragged around to the front, cutting through tendons and tubes. Blood gouted down Briggs’s front like a dam overflowing. When the knife reached Briggs’s other ear and popped out with a final splash, the rancher’s eyes had already rolled to the top of his head, white crescent moons glowing in the dull, yellow light. 

Briggs slumped forward onto Micah’s legs and chest. Micah coughed when his weight pushed the last gapes of air out of his lungs, splattering blood into Briggs’s hair. He grasped at the back of the rancher’s shirt, felt the warm back underneath, and gazed up at the pale figure of his father.


End file.
